a

GAO

United States Government Accountability Office

Report to Congressional Requesters

September 2005 ENVIRONMENTAL 

INFORMATION

Status of Federal Data 

Programs That 

Support Ecological 

Indicators

GAO-05-376
What GAO Found

United States Government Accountability Office

Why GAO Did This Study

Highlights

Accountability Integrity Reliability

www.gao.gov/cgi-bin/getrpt?GAO-05-376.

To view the full product, including the scope 

and methodology, click on the link above. 

For more information, contact John B. 

Stephenson at (202) 512-3841 or 

stephensonj@gao.gov. 

Highlights of GAO-05-376, a report to 

congressional requesters 

September 2005

ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION

Status of Federal Data Programs That 

Support Ecological Indicators 

The federal officials responsible for 14 of the 20 data programs that GAO 

reviewed are confident that the 14 programs will continue to provide all of 

the types of data that they provided in 2002 at a comparable or higher level 

of availability and quality. Agency officials do not expect 2 of the programs 

to provide such data and are uncertain about the ability of 4 programs to do 

so. However, several of these programs are likely to benefit from 

enhancements, including new satellite observations and improved sampling 

and methodological techniques. 

However, in the near term, regarding the specific data used to support 58 

ecological indicators that were identified as suitable for national reporting in 

the Heinz Center’s 2002 State of the Nation’s Ecosystems report, agency 

officials are confident that 15 of the 20 data programs that produced these 

data will provide all of the types of data at a comparable or higher level of 

availability and quality as needed for the next edition of the report, which is 

planned for issuance in 2007. Even though agency officials informed us that 

they anticipate that the overall availability and quality of the data supporting 

the 58 indicators will be maintained, they also indicated that, in some cases, 

data weaknesses or uncertainties exist that could affect the usefulness of the 

data for the Heinz Center’s 2007 report. For example, the information on the 

nation’s forests will not be as current for some states as for others because 

of funding limitations. Furthermore, agency officials responsible for 2 of the 

20 data programs stated that data will not be of an overall comparable level 

of quality and availability for 2007, and officials responsible for the 

remaining 3 data programs were uncertain as to the availability or quality of 

the data for 2007. 

Examples of Ecological Attributes, Their Associated Descriptions, and Example Indicators 

The federal government supports 

numerous data programs that 

assemble and analyze quantitative 

measures of the nation’s 

environmental conditions and 

trends (known as indicators). A 

substantial number of these data 

programs are housed in several 

federal agencies, and provide 

various types of data used routinely 

by decision makers from the 

private sector and all levels of 

government. As federal agencies 

take actions to improve the 

coverage and usefulness of these 

programs, it is equally important 

that the quality and availability of 

existing data generated by these 

programs do not erode overtime. 

In this regard, periodic 

uninterrupted monitoring to 

determine conditions and trends is 

important to accurately describe 

the extent or seriousness of 

environmental problems, or 

conversely, improvements in 

environmental conditions. 

GAO reviewed 20 data programs to 

determine whether federal 

agencies responsible for the 

programs anticipate that changes 

during fiscal years 2005 and 2006 

related to funding, shifting 

priorities, or other factors will 

affect the ability of the programs to 

(1) continue to generate data 

comparable with data from past 

years, and (2) continue providing 

data used in a nationwide 

ecological indicator study by the H. 

John Heinz III Center for Science, 

Economics and the Environment, 

The State of the Nation’s 

Ecosystems. 
Page i GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Contents

Letter 1

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation 8

Appendixes

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology 10

Scope 10

Design and Methodology 10

Appendix II: Conservation Reserve Program, Farm Service Agency, U.S. 

Department of Agriculture 12

Background 12

Summary 19

Agency Perspectives on Potential Impacts of Funding Levels and 

Program Changes 20

Glossary of Conservation Reserve Program Terms 21

Appendix III: Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of 

Agriculture 24

Background 24

Summary 26

Agency Perspectives on Potential Impacts of Funding Levels and 

Program Changes 28

Appendix IV: Forest Inventory and Analysis Program, U.S. Forest Service, 

U.S. Department of Agriculture 30

Background 30

Summary 30

Agency Perspectives on Potential Impacts of Funding Levels and 

Program Changes 31

Appendix V: National Agricultural Statistics Service, U.S. Department of 

Agriculture 35

Background 35

Summary 39

Agency Perspectives on Potential Impacts of Funding Levels and 

Program Changes 40

Appendix VI: National Resources Inventory, Natural Resources 

Conservation Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture 43

Background 43

Summary 44

Agency Perspectives on Potential Impacts of Funding Levels and 

Program Changes 46
Contents

Page ii GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Appendix VII: National Survey on Recreation and the Environment, U.S. 

Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture 50

Background 50

Summary 52

Agency Perspectives on Potential Impacts of Funding Levels and 

Program Changes 55

Appendix VIII: Bureau of Economic Analysis, Economics and Statistics 

Administration, Department of Commerce 58

Background 58

Summary 59

Agency Perspectives on Potential Impacts of Funding Levels and 

Program Changes 61

Appendix IX: National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information 

Service, NOAA, Department of Commerce 63

Background 63

Summary 63

Agency Perspectives on Potential Impacts of Funding Levels and 

Program Changes 65

Appendix X: National Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA, Department of 

Commerce 72

Background 72

NMFS Environmental and Ecological Data Collection Activities Are 

Diverse 75

Summary 81

Agency Perspectives on Potential Impacts of Funding Levels and 

Program Changes 83

Appendix XI: National Ocean Service, NOAA, Department of Commerce 91

Background 91

Summary 97

Agency Perspectives on Potential Impacts of Funding Levels and 

Program Changes 100

Appendix XII: Air Quality System, Office of Air Quality Planning and 

Standards, Environmental Protection Agency 111

Background 111

Summary 111

Agency Perspectives on Potential Impacts of Funding Levels and 

Program Changes 113

Appendix XIII: Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program, 

Environmental Protection Agency 117

Background 117
Contents

Page iii GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Summary 118

Agency Perspectives on Potential Impacts of Funding Levels and 

Program Changes 120

Appendix XIV: Surveillance and Reporting of Waterborne Disease 

Outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 

HHS 126

Background 126

Summary 127

Agency Perspectives on Potential Impacts of Funding Levels and 

Program Changes 128

Appendix XV: Biological Resources Discipline, U.S. Geological Survey, 

Department of the Interior 131

Background 131

Summary 132

Agency Perspectives on Potential Impacts of Funding Levels and 

Program Changes 133

Appendix XVI: Earth Resources Observation Systems Data Center, U.S. 

Geological Survey, Department of the Interior 135

Background 135

Summary 135

Agency Perspectives on Potential Impacts of Funding Levels and 

Program Changes 137

Appendix XVII: National Stream Water Quality Accounting Network, U.S. 

Geological Survey, Department of the Interior 144

Background 144

Summary 147

Agency Perspectives on Potential Impacts of Funding Levels and 

Program Changes 148

Appendix XVIII: National Water Quality Assessment Program, U.S. Geological 

Survey, Department of the Interior 152

Background 152

Summary 153

Agency Perspectives on Potential Impacts of Funding Levels and 

Program Changes 154

Appendix XIX: National Wetlands Inventory, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 

Department of the Interior 159

Background 159

Summary 159

Agency Perspectives on Potential Impacts of Funding Levels and 

Program Changes 161
Contents

Page iv GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Appendix XX: National Streamflow Information Program and National 

Water Information System, Water Resources Discipline, 

USGS, Interior 164

Background 164

Summary 166

Agency Perspectives on Potential Impacts of Funding Levels and 

Program Changes 168

Appendix XXI: Sea Viewing Wide Field-of-view and Related Sensors (MODIS 

and AVHRR), National Aeronautics and Space 

Administration 175

Background 175

Summary 176

Agency Perspectives on Potential Impacts of Funding Levels and 

Program Changes 176

Appendix XXII: Comments from the Department of Commerce 180

Appendix XXIII: Comments from the Department of the Interior 181

Appendix XXIV: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments 183

Tables Table 1: Data Programs and the Continuity and Availability of Data 

in the Future 5

Table 2: Conservation Reserve Program Enrollment and Outlays 14

Table 3: Conservation Practices by Sign-Up Type Installed on CRP/

CREP Acreage as of March 2005 16

Table 4: Cost of Selected ERS Data Analysis Activities for Fiscal 

Years 2000-2005 28

Table 5: NRI Funding Levels for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 and 

Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006 46

Table 6: Forest Service Direct Funding for the NSRE, Fiscal Years 

2000-2004 and Projected for Fiscal Years 2005 and 

2006 53

Table 7: NESDIS Funding Levels for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 and 

Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006 65

Table 8: Fisheries Statistics and Economics Funding for Fiscal 

Years 2000-2005 and Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006 84

Table 9: FSED Headquarters Funding for Fiscal Years 2000-2005, 

and Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006 85

Table 10: Office of Protected Resources Funding for Fiscal Years 

2000-2005 and Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006 86

Table 11: Estimated State Marine Fisheries Agency Funding of 

Recreational Fishery Surveys in 2004 89
Contents

Page v GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Table 12: Selected NOS Entities Responsible for Environmental 

Data and Respective Funding Levels for Fiscal Years 

2000-2005 and Proposed for Fiscal year 2006 101

Table 13: Estimates of Ozone Monitoring Sites and Data Collection 

Costs and Overall AQS Funding for Fiscal Years 

2000-2006 114

Table 14: EMAP Enacted Funding Levels for Fiscal Years 

2000-2005 120

Table 15: BRD Funding for Program Components for Fiscal Years 

2000-2005 134

Table 16: EROS Appropriated, Reprogrammed, and Reimbursable 

Funds for Fiscal Years 2000-2005, and Proposed for Fiscal 

Year 2006 138

Table 17: EROS Funding by Operation for Fiscal Years 

2000-2005 139

Table 18: EROS Salary Costs and Staffing Levels for Fiscal Years 

2000-2005 140

Table 19: NASQAN Stations in Operation, Fiscal Years 2000, 2005, 

and 2006 151

Table 20: NWI Funding Levels for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 and 

Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006 161

Table 21: Projected Costs for Full Implementation of NSIP for Fiscal 

Years 2006-2010 and Operating Costs in Subsequent 

Years 170

Table 22: Funding for USGS Streamgaging Activities for Fiscal Years 

2000 through 2005 and Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006 171

Table 23: USGS Funds for Selected Streamgaging Activities for 

Fiscal Year 2005 172

Figures Figure 1: Conservation Reserve Program Budget for Fiscal Years 

2000-2005 and Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006 19

Figure 2: Economic Research Service Budget for Fiscal Years 

2000-2005 and Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006 27

Figure 3: Forest Inventory and Analysis Program Budget for Fiscal 

Years 2000-2005 and Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006 31

Figure 4: National Agricultural Statistics Service Budget for Fiscal 

Years 2000-2005 and Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006 40

Figure 5: National Resources Inventory Program Budget for Fiscal 

Years 2000-2005 and Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006 45

Figure 6: National Survey on Recreation and the Environment 

Funding for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 and Proposed Fiscal 

Year 2006 54
Contents

Page vi GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Figure 7: Bureau of Economic Analysis Budget for Fiscal Years 

2000-2005 and Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006 60

Figure 8: National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information 

Service Budget for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 and Proposed 

for Fiscal Year 2006 64

Figure 9: National Marine Fisheries Service Budget for Fiscal Years 

2000-2005 and Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006 82

Figure 10: National Ocean Service Budget for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 

and Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006 98

Figure 11: Air Quality System Program Budget for Fiscal Years 

2000-2005 and Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006 112

Figure 12: Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program 

Budget for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 and Proposed for Fiscal 

Year 2006 119

Figure 13: Biological Resources Discipline Program Budget for 

Fiscal Years 2000-2005 and Proposed for Fiscal Year 

2006 132

Figure 14: Earth Resources Observation Systems Program Budget 

for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 and Proposed for Fiscal Year 

2006 136

Figure 15: National Stream Water Quality Accounting Network 

Budget for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 and Proposed for Fiscal 

Year 2006 147

Figure 16: National Water Quality Assessment Budget for Fiscal 

Years 2000-2005 and Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006 153

Figure 17: National Wetlands Inventory Budget for Fiscal Years 

2000-2005 and Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006 160

Figure 18: Funding for USGS Streamgaging Activities from Federal 

and Nonfederal Sources for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 and 

Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006 167

Abbreviations

AQS Air Quality System

AREI Agricultural Resources and Environmental Indicators

AVHRR Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer

BEA Bureau of Economic Analysis

BRD Biological Resources Discipline

CDC Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 
Contents

Page vii GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

CRP Conservation Reserve Program

DOC U.S. Department of Commerce

DOI U.S. Department of the Interior

EDC EROS Data Center

EDS Environmental Data Service

EMAP Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program

EPA U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

EROS National Center for Earth Resources Observation & Science

ERS Economic Research Service

ESI Environmental Sensitivity Index

FIA Forest Inventory and Analysis Program

FSA Farm Service Agency

HHS U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 

MODIS Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer

NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NASQAN National Stream Water Quality Accounting Network

NASS National Agricultural Statistics Service

NAWQA National Water-Quality Assessment Program

NCA National Coastal Assessment

NCCOS National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science

NESDIS National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service

NLCD National Land Cover Dataset

NMFS National Marine Fisheries Service

NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

NOS National Ocean Service

NRC National Research Council

NRCS Natural Resources Conservation Service

NRI National Resources Inventory

NSIP National Streamflow Information Program

NSRE National Survey on Recreation and the Environment

NWI National Wetlands Inventory

NWIS National Water Information System

OMB Office of Management and Budget

PART Program Assessment Rating Tool

SeaWiFS Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor

USDA U.S. Department of Agriculture

USFS U.S. Forest Service

USFWS U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

USGS U.S. Geological Survey

WBDO waterborne-disease outbreak

WRD Water Resources Discipline 
Contents

Page viii GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

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Page 1 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

United States Government Accountability Office

Washington, D.C. 20548

A

September 2, 2005 Letr

The Honorable Sherwood L. Boehlert

Chairman

Committee on Science

House of Representatives

The Honorable Vernon J. Ehlers

Chairman

Subcommittee on Environment, Technology and Standards

Committee on Science

House of Representatives

Comprehensive and reliable information on the nation’s environment and 

natural resources is a cornerstone of effective environmental management 

and an integral part of a national strategy to anticipate and address 

problems. Governments, businesses, and the general public depend on 

relevant, accurate, and timely environmental information to make informed 

decisions in evaluating the performance of environmental programs, 

aligning the efficiency of markets with environmental protection, assessing 

the state of the environment and natural resources, and identifying 

emerging issues and options for action. Although reliable data and 

statistical information is rarely the sole factor that determines how society 

should address any particular issue, such information is essential to 

support the assessment of various alternatives and to inform policy 

decisions. 

The federal government supports numerous data programs that assemble 

and analyze quantitative measures on the nation’s environmental 

conditions and trends (known as indicators). These data programs are 

housed primarily in agencies within the Departments of Agriculture, 

Commerce, Health and Human Services, and the Interior; the 

Environmental Protection Agency; and the National Aeronautics and Space 

Administration. Twenty of these data programs, which provide various 

types of data used routinely by decision makers from the private sector and 

all levels of government, provided data used by the H. John Heinz III Center 

for Science, Economics and the Environment to prepare its 2002 State of 

the Nation’s Ecosystems report. This report portrays on a national scale 

what is known and not known about the state of our lands, waters, and 

other living ecosystems using a comprehensive, science-based effort. The 

report lists 103 indicators relating to six major ecosystem types (coasts and 

oceans, farmlands, forests, fresh waters, grasslands and shrublands, and 
Page 2 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

urban and suburban areas). The report both provides a blueprint for 

periodic reporting on the condition and use of the nation’s ecosystems and 

identifies major gaps in the data available for each of the ecosystems.The 

Heinz Center is currently working with federal agencies and other 

organizations to identify the efforts necessary to fill the data gaps identified 

in its 2002 report.

While closing the data gaps identified in the Heinz Center report is essential 

to fully characterize the state of the ecosystems, it is equally important that 

the quality and availability of the data that formed the foundation of the 

report in 2002 do not erode over time. In this regard, periodic uninterrupted 

monitoring to develop data and trends is crucial to decision makers and 

scientists in accurately describing the extent or seriousness of an 

environmental problem or, conversely, the extent to which a condition may 

be improving. Changes in environmental conditions occur, sometimes 

imperceptibly, as a result of a complex web of natural and human factors 

such as changes in economic conditions, weather patterns, pollution, and 

environmental policies. Consequently, establishing cause and effect 

relationships is difficult and relies on periodic monitoring of data over a 

long period of time. For example, the dynamic mechanisms of how 

freshwater ecosystems change in response to contaminants, water 

withdrawals, fishing activity, and the introduction of nonnative species are 

often understood only after gathering comparable data on numerous water 

characteristics, from many locations, and at regular intervals.

In this context, you asked that we determine whether the data programs 

used to generate or support the ecological indicators included in the 2002 

State of the Nation’s Ecosystems report will continue to provide 

comparable data in the future. Specifically, for each of the data programs 

under review, we were asked to determine whether the federal agency 

responsible for the program anticipates that changes during fiscal years 

2005 and 2006 related to funding, shifting priorities, or other factors will 

affect the ability of the program to continue to generate data comparable 

with data from past years and sufficient to compare environmental 

conditions in 2002 with conditions in 2007, the expected date of the Heinz 

Center’s next State of the Nation’s Ecosystems report. As agreed with your 

offices, we limited the scope of our review to the 20 data programs that 

provided the information used for 58 of the 103 ecological indicators 

identified in the Heinz Center report. The 58 indictors are those that the 

Heinz Center identified as suitable for national reporting in 2002 because 

they were supported by data of sufficiently high quality, with adequate 
Page 3 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

nationwide geographic coverage, and from established monitoring 

activities offering a reasonable prospect for future data availability.

For each of the 20 data programs, we used a data collection instrument 

along with follow-up contact with key officials responsible for the program, 

to obtain the agency’s views on funding, program priorities, anticipated 

changes, data quality, and other related issues. We analyzed the information 

obtained and placed the programs in categories according to the agencies’ 

responses to our questions. The categories reflect whether the information 

we obtained from the agencies indicates that the 20 data programs will 

continue to provide (1) all of the types of data provided in 2002 at a 

comparable level of availability and quality and (2) the specific data on the 

58 ecological indicators reported in the Heinz Center’s 2002 report as 

having data sufficient for national reporting. Appendix I provides a more 

detailed description of our scope and methodology. We performed our 

work from July 2004 through August 2005 in accordance with generally 

accepted government auditing standards.

In summary, our analysis of the information we obtained indicates that 

agency officials are confident that 14 of the 20 programs will provide all of 

the types of data that they provided in 2002 at a comparable or higher level 

of availability and quality. Several of these programs are likely to benefit 

from enhancements, such as improved sampling and methodological 

techniques. Agency officials do not believe that two data programs will 

provide all of the types of data they produced in 2002 at a comparable or 

higher level of availability and quality, and are uncertain whether four other 

programs will do so. 

However, in the near term, regarding the specific data used to support the 

58 ecological indicators discussed in the Heinz Center’s report, agency 

officials are confident that 15 of the 20 programs will provide all of the 

types of data that they provided in 2002 at a comparable or higher level of 

availability and quality. Agency officials responsible for two data programs 

stated that data will not be available at comparable levels of quality and 

availability, and officials responsible for the remaining three data programs 

were uncertain as to the availability of data needed for the Heinz Center’s 

2007 report. In some cases and as shown in table 1, even though agency 

officials informed us that they anticipate that the overall availability and 

quality of the data will be maintained, data weaknesses or uncertainties 

exist that could affect the usefulness of the data for the Heinz Center’s 2007 

report. Following are some examples: 
Page 4 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

• While the data provided by the Earth Resources Observation and 

Science Data Center for the 2007 Heinz Center report will be more 

recent than that used for the 2002 report, having been acquired before a 

Landsat 7 satellite malfunction that occurred in May 2003, updates of 

these more recent data that were planned by the United States 

Geological Survey and other sponsors of the data sets will likely not be 

possible before the 2009 launch of the Landsat Continuity Mission, 

which will replace the Landsat 7 satellite.

• The overall availability and quality of the data provided by the Forest 

Inventory and Analysis program will be improved, according to Forest 

Service officials. However, data for six states (covering about 23 percent 

of the nation’s forests) may not be as accurate as data provided in prior 

years because of a lack of funding to perform field validation of data 

obtained from remote sensors. 

• The Forest Service anticipates that the National Survey on Recreation 

and the Environment will provide comparable data for the next Heinz 

Center report. Nevertheless, potential reductions in funding from other 

federal agencies that support the survey could result in a decline in the 

availability and quality of the data.

• The 2002 Heinz Center report utilized the Agriculture Department’s 

Census of Agriculture that included the latest available data from 1997. 

Similarly, the 2007 Heinz Center report will have access to the latest 

available Census of Agriculture that includes data from 2002. While 

Agriculture will have collected census data for 2007 by the time the next 

Heinz Center report is issued, the census data will not have been 

processed and published by that time for use in the Heinz Center’s 

report.

Table 1 shows the data programs we reviewed and the results of our 

analysis of agency responses related to the continuity of program data in 

future years and data availability for the Heinz Center’s planned 2007 State 

of the Nation’s Ecosystems report. See appendixes II through XXI for 

specific information on the future direction of each data program we 

reviewed.
Page 5 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Table 1: Data Programs and the Continuity and Availability of Data in the Future

Data program Continuity of program data in future years

Data availability for the planned 

2007 Heinz Center report

National Stream Water 

Quality Accounting Network 

(NASQAN), U.S. Geological 

Survey (USGS), Department 

of the Interior

No

• Water sampling frequency has continued a 

decline begun in 1980, from monthly to 

bimonthly or quarterly.

No

• While data used by the Heinz Center in its 2002 

report came from more than 400 sampling stations, 

data for the center’s planned 2007 report will be 

from fewer than 30 sampling stations.

National Water Quality 

Assessment (NAWQA), 

USGS, Interior

No

• Study units dropped from 51 to 42 over the last 

decade, and the funding reductions in fiscal year 

2005 have resulted in a reduction in long-term 

surface water monitoring sites from 145 to 84.

No

• Some data used by the Heinz Center in its 2002 

report are no longer collected (e.g., contaminants in 

fish tissues and streambed sediment), while others 

are still collected but at reduced frequency. 

Forest Inventory and Analysis 

(FIA) Program, U.S. Forest 

Service, USDA

Yes

• According to program officials, by 2007, the FIA 

program will be able to provide some of the most 

complete data in its history, on a much timelier 

basis. Newly designed information systems that 

use new software will integrate data and 

map-based information.

Yes

• Although data for 6 states, covering about 23 

percent of the nation’s forests, may not be as fresh 

as the data for the other 44 states due to funding 

constraints, the set of forest data that will be 

available for the planned 2007 Heinz Center report 

will be superior in coverage, detail, and timeliness to 

the data available in 2002. In 2002, 80 percent of the 

data were from “old” periodic inventories and 20 

percent was from “new” inventories based on an 

annual data collection using a new, technologically 

superior system that began in 1999. For the 2007 

Heinz Center report, 80 percent of the data will be 

from the new system and 20 percent of the data will 

be from the older periodic inventory approach.

Biological Resources 

Discipline (BRD), USGS, 

Interior

Yes

• BRD data will continue to be collected in similar 

form in coming years.

Yes

• Officials expect that BRD data the Heinz Center 

used in 2002 will continue to be available in 

satisfactory form for the planned 2007 report.

National Survey on 

Recreation and the 

Environment (NSRE), U.S. 

Forest Service, USDA

Uncertain

• Reductions in funding of NSRE by the Forest 

Service mean that the survey program will be 

more dependent on funding from other sources, 

including other federal agencies with interests in 

various facets of outdoor recreation activities 

and participation.

Uncertain

• With adequate support from collaborating agencies 

for the 2005-2006 NSRE, recreation data used by 

the Heinz Center for its 2002 report will be matched 

in quality and comprehensiveness for the planned 

2007 report. Funding insufficient to match the 

coverage of the 2000-2001 NSRE, however, may 

result in fewer responses and data that are less 

geographically rigorous.

Economic Research Service 

(ERS), USDA

Yes

• ERS develops four data sets the Heinz Center 

used in its 2002 report, all of which are integral 

to its programs.

Yes

• Officials expect their data will be available in 

comparable or better form for use in the planned 

2007 Heinz Center report, and suggest that 

additional ERS data that will be available could be 

used to develop new ecological indicators.
Page 6 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

National Agricultural 

Statistics Service (NASS), 

USDA

Yes

• NASS data are developed in part through a 

Census of Agriculture that is prepared every 5 

years and will provide data of the type used in 

the Heinz Center 2002 report. In addition, NASS 

officials expect that some crop data will improve 

as a result of a NASS initiative to restore the 

collection of certain survey data that were 

suspended for budgetary reasons in fiscal year 

2003.

Yes

• The previous Heinz Center report, published in 

2002, utilized the latest available Census of 

Agriculture data from 1997; similarly, the planned 

2007 Heinz Center report will be able to include the 

latest available Census of Agriculture results from 

2002, released in the spring of 2004. The Heinz 

Center will add data for its ecological indicators as 

they become available from the 2007 Census of 

Agriculture. 

Conservation Reserve 

Program (CRP), Farm 

Service Agency, USDA

Yes

• The CRP is USDA’s largest conservation 

program. The data generated by the program 

are essential to program administration and are 

expected to be available for as long as the 

program exists.

Yes

• CRP officials are confident that the data used for the 

2002 Heinz Center report will continue to be 

available in comparable form for the center’s 

planned 2007 report.

National Marine Fisheries 

Service (NMFS), National 

Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration

(NOAA), Department of 

Commerce

Yes

• Officials expect to generate data similar in 

quality and comprehensiveness to those in 

previous years.

Uncertain

• Funding cuts or rising costs could result in lower 

sampling levels and delayed processing and 

reporting for data used in the 2002 Heinz Center 

report.

National Ocean Service 

(NOS), NOAA, Commerce

Uncertain

• According to agency officials, minor budget cuts 

may affect the breadth and comprehensiveness 

of certain data collection and fieldwork activities.

Yes

• Officials believe that data collection and analysis will 

continue for all programs, and that data will be 

available at similar or improved quality for the Heinz 

Center’s planned 2007 report.

National Wetlands Inventory 

(NWI), U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

Service (USFWS), Interior

Yes

• The quality and comprehensiveness of wetland 

status and trends data will be comparable or 

superior to that of past reports. Agency officials 

also indicated that the President has directed 

that these wetland reports be prepared more 

frequently, beginning in 2006.

Yes

• 16 U.S.C. § 3931(a)(4) requires USFWS to produce 

wetland status and trends reports. These data were 

used in the 2002 Heinz Center report, and the data 

are expected to continue to be available for the next 

iteration of the center’s report. These data and 

reports continue to be the highest priority of the NWI 

program. 

National Center for Earth 

Resources Observation and 

Science (EROS), USGS, 

Interior

Yes

• The quality and comprehensiveness of data 

collection and analysis will be similar or superior 

to that of past years. Changes in analytical 

approaches may expand the utility of datasets 

such as the National Landcover Dataset. Data 

on vegetation condition from planned satellite 

missions are also expected to be of higher 

quality.

Uncertain

• Data for the 2007 Heinz Center report will be more 

recent than the 1992 data used for the center’s 2002 

report, having been acquired in 2001, before a May 

2003 Landsat satellite malfunction. However, further 

significant updates of these data will likely not be 

possible before the planned 2009 launch of the 

Landsat continuity mission.

(Continued From Previous Page)

Data program Continuity of program data in future years

Data availability for the planned 

2007 Heinz Center report
Page 7 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

National Environmental 

Satellite, Data, and 

Information Service 

(NESDIS), NOAA, 

Commerce

Yes

• As reflected in NOAA’s strategic plan, efforts are 

under way to build and advance the capabilities 

of an ecological component of the NOAA global 

environmental observing system to monitor, 

assess, and predict national and regional 

ecosystem health, as well as to gather 

information consistent with established social 

and economic indicators. Under this direction, 

NESDIS will be supportive of sustaining, and 

improving, the ability of its data programs to 

provide data and information at a level and 

quality of previous years.

Yes

• According to agency officials, NESDIS 

environmental data are expected to be available in 

an equivalent or improved form for the expected 

2007 Heinz Center report. For example, bathymetric 

mapping and physical oceanographic data products 

are continually improving the resolution and 

accuracy of coverage as new data sources become 

available. Looking into the next decade, 

next-generation satellites will reduce atmospheric 

contamination of the data compared to the present, 

and is also expected to significantly improve sea 

surface temperature data. 

National Resources Inventory 

(NRI), Natural Resources 

Conservation Service, USDA

Yes

• According to program officials, improved 

estimates at both national and regional scales 

are expected to be available in coming years.

Yes

• Officials expect NRI data to be available in 2007 in a 

form comparable to or better than that used for the 

2002 Heinz Center report.

Bureau of Economic Analysis 

(BEA), Economics and 

Statistics Administration, 

Commerce

Yes

• BEA officials will devote a proposed fiscal year 

2006 budget increase to initiatives to improve the 

accuracy and timeliness of its data by upgrading 

information technology for sampling and data 

input techniques and expanding the budget of 

the Regional Economics Directorate, the source 

of data on county personal income used by the 

Heinz Center in its 2002 report.

Yes

• Officials expect their data will be available in 

comparable or better form for use in the 2007 Heinz 

Center report.

Environmental Monitoring 

and Assessment Program 

(EMAP), Office of Research 

and Development, U.S. 

Environmental Protection 

Agency

Uncertain

• Funding cuts for extramural ecological research 

have affected the nature, scope, and timing of 

EMAP research and required EMAP managers 

to adjust the program’s research strategy and 

devise new ways of accomplishing its research 

objectives. The loss of this funding may result in 

extending the completion dates of program 

components or scaling back the size of research 

efforts and the extent of data produced.

Yes

• According to agency officials, ongoing and projected 

EMAP research, data collection, and data analysis 

efforts will yield data for the projected 2007 Heinz 

Center report similar in quality and 

comprehensiveness to that used by the Heinz 

Center in its 2002 report. 

Air Quality System (AQS), 

Office of Air Quality Planning 

and Standards (OAQPS), 

U.S. Environmental 

Protection Agency

Yes

• According to agency officials, planned 

improvements to AQS will make data reporting 

more timely and will optimize the Photochemical 

Air Monitoring Stations (PAMS) used to measure 

chemical precursors for ground-level ozone.

Yes

• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and OAQPS 

officials predict that AQS data of the type used in the 

2002 Heinz Center report will be available in 

improved form for the center’s 2007 report.

(Continued From Previous Page)

Data program Continuity of program data in future years

Data availability for the planned 

2007 Heinz Center report
Page 8 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Source: GAO analysis of agency information.

Agency Comments and 

Our Evaluation

We provided a draft of this report for review and comment to the 

Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, and 

the Interior; the Environmental Protection Agency; and the National 

Aeronautics and Space Administration. The agencies generally agreed with 

the information in the report, and in some cases provided additional 

information regarding the availability and quality of the data that will be 

available for the planned 2007 Heinz Center’s report. We incorporated such 

information and the agencies’ technical comments, as appropriate. 

As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce the contents of 

this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 14 days from the 

report date. At that time, we will send copies to the appropriate 

Sea-viewing Wide 

Field-of-view Sensor 

(SeaWiFS), Moderate 

Resolution Imaging 

Spectroradiometer (MODIS), 

and Advanced Very High 

Resolution Radiometer 

(AVHRR) measurements, 

National Aeronautics and 

Space Administration

Yes

• Officials believe that there are no changes in 

program funding or priorities that would preclude 

generating data in coming years that are 

comparable with data produced in the past. 

Sea-surface temperature data are expected to 

be superior as a result of merging microwave 

and infrared sensors.

Yes

• According to agency officials, data used in the 2002 

Heinz Center report will be available in improved 

form for use in the center’s planned 2007 report.

National Streamflow 

Information Program and 

National Water Information 

System (NWIS), Water 

Resources Discipline, USGS, 

Interior

Uncertain

• According to agency officials, the 

USGS-operated streamflow information program 

and NWIS will continue to collect and analyze 

streamflow and other key water-related data but 

at slightly reduced levels due to budget declines 

since fiscal year 2001. Heavy reliance on 

streamgages funded by cooperators and 

partners rather than USGS makes the network 

inherently unstable.

Yes

• WRD officials said data used to support the 2002 

Heinz Center report will be available at comparable 

levels of quality and comprehensiveness for the 

center’s planned 2007 report.

Surveillance and Reporting 

of Waterborne Disease 

Outbreaks (WBDO), Centers 

for Disease Control and 

Prevention, Department of 

Health and Human Services

Yes

• Officials predict that system enhancements 

should improve collection, analysis, and 

reporting of WBDO information.

Yes

• Agency officials expect that data used to support the 

Heinz Center’s 2002 ecological indicators will be 

available at similar or superior levels of quality and 

comprehensiveness for use in the center’s expected 

2007 report.

(Continued From Previous Page)

Data program Continuity of program data in future years

Data availability for the planned 

2007 Heinz Center report
Page 9 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

congressional committees; the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, 

Health and Human Services, and the Interior; the Administrators of EPA 

and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; and other 

interested parties. We will also make copies available to others upon 

request. In addition, the report will be available at no charge on the GAO 

Web site at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have any questions about this report or need additional 

information, please contact me at (202) 512-3841 or stephensonj@gao.gov. 

Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public 

Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made 

major contributions to this report are included in appendix XXIV.

John B. Stephenson

Director, Natural Resources

 and Environment
Page 10 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Appendix I

Scope and Methodology ApApenednxidexiIs

The overall objective of this review was to examine the likelihood that 

various data programs relied on to generate ecological indicators identified 

in The State of the Nation's Ecosystems—a report issued in 2002 by the H. 

John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment—will 

continue to provide comparable data. Specifically, for each data program 

under review you asked us to determine whether the federal agency 

responsible for the program anticipates that changes related to funding, 

shifting priorities, or other factors will affect the ability of the program to 

continue to generate data comparable to data from past years.

Scope We gathered information on 20 federal data programs housed within the 

Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, the Interior, and Health and 

Human Services as well as the Environmental Protection Agency and the 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration. We limited our scope to 

include only those federal data programs providing information used for 58 

of the 103 ecological indicators in the Heinz Center report. These 58 

indicators were identified in the Heinz Center report as being supported by 

data with sufficiently high quality, with adequate geographic coverage on a 

nationwide scale, and from established monitoring programs offering a 

reasonable prospect for future data availability.

Design and 

Methodology

For each of the 20 data programs we reviewed, we sent a data collection 

instrument that contained basic questions for each agency to answer. 

These questions covered budget issues, data-quality issues, and expected 

changes to the respective programs and data collection efforts, among 

other things. We pretested a basic set of questions with officials from two 

agency data programs, and then revised these questions before sending 

them to officials from the other 18 data programs. In addition, we added, on 

a case-by-case basis, questions that were unique for each agency and its 

respective data programs. The agencies had from November 2004 to May 

2005 to review and respond to the questions. Once we received and 

reviewed the program responses, we made follow-up contacts to clarify 

remaining issues and to ensure we completely understood the agency 

responses. All of the agencies responded to our questions. We did not 

independently corroborate the responses from the agencies with regard to 

nonbudget questions. We determined that agency responses to our 

questions met our criteria for budget-data reliability. These criteria 

included independent verification or audits of financial reports, and data 

corroborated by inspector-general reports or financial statements. Because 
Appendix I

Scope and Methodology

Page 11 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

agency expenditures associated with data collection, archiving, and 

dissemination are at times embedded within other agency programs or 

functions and are not explicit line items in budget requests or 

determinations, some of the funding totals we obtained represent the 

agencies’ best estimates. We conducted our work from July 2004 through 

August 2005 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 

standards.

We compiled a summary table of agency responses to identify possible 

changes in data availability and continuity when compared with past years. 

We assigned a “yes” to responses if agency officials indicated that data 

were expected to be available at similar or improved levels when compared 

with previous years. We assigned a “no” to responses if agency officials 

indicated that data were decreasing in availability. We assigned an 

“uncertain” if agency officials indicated that some aspect of the data being 

generated from the program was compromised or expected to be 

compromised in other ways. Similarly, with respect to data availability 

between the 2002 and the planned 2007 Heinz Center reports, we presented 

the agencies’ assessments with respect to the expectation the data will be 

available at the same quality and comprehensiveness for the 2007 update. 

In all cases, our determinations were based on a review of written and oral 

testimony provided by agency officials.
Page 12 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Appendix II

Conservation Reserve Program, Farm Service 

Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture ApendxiI

Background The Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is the U.S. Department of 

Agriculture’s (USDA) largest and most ambitious conservation effort. 

Administered by USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA), CRP was established 

by the Food Security Act of 19851

 and currently operates in all 50 states and 

Puerto Rico. CRP encourages and assists farm owners and operators to 

conserve and improve soil, water, air, and wildlife resources by 

withdrawing environmentally sensitive cropland and pastureland from 

agricultural production and keeping them under long-term vegetative 

cover. Program participants enroll eligible acreage for at least 10 years, and 

for up to 15 years by arrangement, during which they agree to adopt a 

variety of approved conservation practices (CP), specific actions such as 

installing structures, planting vegetation, or implementing management 

techniques recognized by USDA as protecting, conserving, and enhancing 

natural resources such as soil, water, air, plants, and wildlife.2

In return for implementing these conservation practices, program 

participants receive annual rental payments that average about $48 an acre 

(payments vary with prevailing local rental rates). Participants receive 

cost-share payments for up to half the cost of implementing approved 

conservation practices such as planting grasses and trees, installing 

windbreaks, and preserving wildlife flora. Participants also receive 

technical assistance from USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service 

(NRCS), which provides technical land-eligibility determinations and 

advice on conservation planning and implementation techniques. The U.S. 

Forest Service provides technical advice on tree selection and planting.3

Farm owners and operators can enroll their land in CRP in two ways, 

through general or continuous sign-up.4

 General sign-up occurs for a few 

weeks every year or so. During this period, program staff accepts 

enrollment applications and evaluates them using an Environmental 

Benefits Index (EBI) that weighs six factors: (1) wildlife habitat benefits; 

1

Pub. L. No. 99-198 § 1231, 99 Stat. 1354, 1509.

2

16 U.S.C. §§ 3831-3832 sets forth the elements of the CRP. See the glossary at the end of this 

enclosure for descriptions and examples of CRP-approved conservation practices.

3

The USDA Service Centers are sometimes co-located with FSA county offices, although 

they do not correspond strictly to the nation’s approximately 3,100 counties.

4

7 C.F.R. § 1410.6 contains criteria to establish the eligibility of land for enrollment in the 

CRP. 
Appendix II

Conservation Reserve Program, Farm Service 

Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture

Page 13 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

(2) water-quality benefits from reduced erosion, runoff, and leaching; (3) 

on-farm benefits of reduced soil erosion; (4) enduring environmental 

benefits; (5) air-quality benefits from reduced wind erosion; and (6) cost. 

During the most recent general sign-up, in 2004, more than 26,000 

applications (or “offers”) totaling 1.7 million acres were received. Over 

19,700 offers were accepted for an enrollment of about 1.2 million acres. 

About 32 million acres of CRP’s enrolled acreage have been brought into 

the program through general sign-up.

Continuous sign-up, in contrast to general sign-up, is available at any time 

of year for owners who agree to adopt certain high-priority conservation 

practices. These practices include installation of filter strips, riparian 

buffers, grass waterways, shelterbelts, field windbreaks, living snow 

fences, salinity reducing vegetation, shallow water areas for wildlife, and 

wetland restoration. Under continuous sign-up, there is no weighting of 

applications, and farmers and farm operators do not compete for 

acceptance into the program. Continuous sign-up enrollees may also 

receive added up-front and annual financial incentives for participation.

Incentive payments to encourage practices supported by continuous signup include $100 to $150 an acre for selected practices and cost-share 

payments up to 50 percent for implementing conservation practices 

(applies to all CRP, general and continuous). Additional practice incentive 

payments of up to 40 percent are allowed for selected continuous signup 

practices.

As of March 2005, general CRP sign-up had enrolled 31.8 million acres and 

continuous sign-up nearly 3 million acres, for a total of approximately 34.8 

million acres. The Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002 

extended CRP enrollment authority through 2007 and increased the 

program’s maximum acreage from 36.4 million to 39.2 million.5

 For fiscal 

years 1986 through 2005, total CRP spending has amounted to $30.5 billion. 

Rental payments have totaled $27.4 billion, cost-share payments $1.9 

billion, incentive payments $478 million, and technical assistance outlays 

$682 million. Nine-tenths of the technical assistance outlays have gone to 

the NRCS and 1/10th to the Forest Service. Table 2 shows CRP’s enrollment 

and outlay activity for fiscal years 2000 through 2005 (as of March 2005).

5

16 U.S.C. § 3831.
Appendix II

Conservation Reserve Program, Farm Service 

Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture

Page 14 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Table 2: Conservation Reserve Program Enrollment and Outlays

Est.= Estimate

Source: USDA.

a

Acres under contract at end of fiscal year.

b

Rental payments in a fiscal year apply to acres under contract in the previous fiscal year. Includes 

miscellaneous adjustments and adjustments for haying/grazing usage.

c

Cost-share payments are made after cover establishment work is done. For contracts beginning in a 

given year, payments can occur over several years.

d

Signing and Practice Incentive payments for continuous sign-up enrollment.

e

Technical assistance outlays are generally paid to NRCS and the Forest Service in the year sign-ups 

occur.

For both general and continuous sign-up, applicants must appear at one of 

FSA’s 2,351 offices (most are colocated with USDA service centers or 

county offices) and formally enter into a CRP contract. The CRP contract is 

between the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) and the program 

participant, and payments are disbursed by the CCC.6

 The contract requires 

information on the participant (e.g., name, address, Social Security number, 

and phone number) and information on the conservation practices agreed 

to, the acreage enrolled, and the acreage committed to each practice.

Millions of acres Dollars (in millions)

Fiscal year

Cumulative

enrollmenta

Rental

paymentsb

Cost-share

paymentc

Incentive

paymentsd

Technical assistance

outlayse

Total

outlays

2000 31.4 1,333 133 10 35 1,511

2001 33.6 1,397 150 78 32 1,657

2002 33.9 1,527 143 115 20 1,805

2003 34.1 1,580 101 104 55 1,840

2004 34.7 1,581 120 85 60 (est.) 1,846 (est.)

2005 35.2 (est.) 1,660 (est.) 102 (est.) 86 (est.) 90 (est.) 1,938 (est.)

Total 9,078 (est.) 749 (est.) 478 (est.) 292 (est.) 10,597 est.)

6

The Commodity Credit Corporation is a federally owned and operated corporation created 

in 1933 to stabilize, support, and protect farm income and prices. Exec. Order No. 6340 (Oct. 

16, 1933). CCC helps maintain balanced and adequate supplies of agricultural commodities 

and aids in their orderly distribution. Initially managed and operated in close affiliation with 

the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, CCC was transferred to the United States 

Department of Agriculture (USDA) in 1939. CCC was reincorporated on July 1, 1948, as a 

federal corporation within USDA by the Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act, 15 

U.S.C. § 714.
Appendix II

Conservation Reserve Program, Farm Service 

Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture

Page 15 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Participants agree to apply specific conservation practices on their land, to 

file forms used by the CCC to determine limits on payments, and to 

perform certain management work such as breaking up the soil or burning 

specified cover. For its part, the CCC agrees to calculate and make costshare payments, rental payments, and interest payments for cost-share 

disbursals not made on time. Both parties agree to a conservation plan that 

describes the vegetative or water cover to be established, trees to be 

planted, completion dates, and estimated environmental benefits. Agency 

representatives make occasional spot checks of the land entered into CRP 

but routinely rely on data provided by participants.

As contracts are written at each local USDA office, FSA creates a data file 

that includes all contract-related information, including information on the 

conservation practices agreed to, the acreage enrolled, and the rental and 

cost-share estimates. At the end of each workday, computer programs in 

the service centers record and store these new contract details, and once a 

week contract data are transmitted electronically to a USDA national 

computer processing center in Kansas City, Missouri. Held in this central 

file are all of the conservation practice, acreage, and payment details for 

690,000 active CRP contracts. These records are integral to contract 

oversight and management and serve an essentially administrative 

purpose. At the same time, however, they contain valuable information for 

tracking environmental trends. This is especially true because the data are 

updated weekly and summarized monthly down to the state level. 

Conservation practices described in the records include, for example, 

plantings of new native grasses, development of wildlife food plots, and 

plantings of salinity-reducing vegetation (see table below). CRP payments 

to participants are made by the CCC.

In table 3, conservation practices are reported as of March 2005 for general 

and continuous sign-up. Distinctions are made for acreage enrolled by the 

CRP and the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP)—both 

administered by the FSA. CREP was initiated after enactment of the 1996 

Farm Bill as a federal-state conservation partnership targeting designated 

areas—such as the Chesapeake Bay and the Pacific Northwest—to address 

specific state and nationally significant agriculture-related environmental 

problems. Of foremost concern to CREP are issues relating to water 

supplies and areas around wells, wildlife species endangered by loss of 

critical habitat, soil erosion, and reduced habitat for fish such as salmon.
Appendix II

Conservation Reserve Program, Farm Service 

Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture

Page 16 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

CREP offers additional financial incentives, such as sign-up bonuses 

beyond those available under CRP, to encourage farmers and ranchers to 

enroll in 10- to 15-year contracts to retire land from production. Like CRP, 

CREP is funded through the Commodity Credit Corporation, but unlike 

CRP, CREP receives part of the program’s costs from the federal 

government and part from state or tribal governments. Enrollment in CREP 

is on a continuous basis, without the competition involved in CRP’s general 

sign-up. CREP supports particular conservation initiatives such as 

installing filter strips and forested buffers to protect streams, lakes, and 

rivers from sedimentation and agricultural runoff. CREP also encourages 

landowners to develop and restore wetlands by planting appropriate 

ground cover. This year, federal-state CREP agreements are in effect in 25 

states.

Table 3: Conservation Practices by Sign-Up Type Installed on CRP/CREP Acreage as of March 2005

Acres

General Continuous

Conservation practice CRP sign-up CREP sign-up

Non-CREP

sign-up Farmable wetland Total

CP1 New introduced grasses 

and legumes 3,269,470 108,669 72,090 0 3,450,229

CP2 New native grasses 6,448,277 62,391 19,393 0 6,530,061

CP3 New softwood trees (not 

longleaf) 427,355 372 320 0 428,046

CP3A New longleaf pines 185,281 0 0 0 185,281

CP3A New hardwood trees 526,583 8,270 877 0 535,729

CP4 Permanent wildlife habitat 2,318,006 38,506 3,066 0 2,359,578

CP5 Field windbreaks 833 2,714 70,383 0 73,930

CP6 Diversion 834 0 0 0 834

CP7 Erosion control structures 653 1 1 0 655

CP8 Grass waterways 1,009 581 107,289 0 108,880

CP9 Shallow water areas for 

wildlife 1,943 2,284 46,046 0 50,274

CP10 Existing grasses and 

legumes 15,147,916 11,785 37,587 0 15,197,289

CP11 Existing trees 1,093,763 357 0 0 1,094,120

CP12 Wildlife food plots 75,407 1,733 0 0 77,141

CP13 vegetative filter strips 29,467 0 0 0 29,467

CP15 Contour grass strips 36 115 78,062 0 78,213
Appendix II

Conservation Reserve Program, Farm Service 

Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture

Page 17 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Source: USDA.

Note: Data sources used for the 2002 Heinz Center report indicator land use (grasslands and 

shrublands) are shown in bold-faced type.

Six of the approved CRP conservation practices are by far the most widely 

used. Of the 34,822,105 acres enrolled in the program as of March 2005, 

nearly half are contracts to maintain existing grasses and legumes. New 

plantings of grasses and legumes compose another third of the acreage. 

CP16 Shelterbelts 364 384 28,657 0 29,406

CP17 Living snow fences 2 0 4,128 0 4,130

CP18 Salinity reducing 

vegetation 0 0 294,766 0 294,766

CP19 Alley cropping 52 0 0 0 52

CP20 Alternative perennials 23 0 0 0 23

CP21 Filter strips (grass) 0 127,711 841,236 0 968,947

CP22 Riparian buffers 0 146,817 561,557 0 708,374

CP23 Wetland restoration 1,568,820 91,683 0 0 1,660,502

CP23 Wetland restoration 

(floodplain) 0 0 67,118 0 67,118

CP23A Wetland restoration 

(nonfloodplain) 0 0 4,512 0 4,512

CP24 Cross wind trap Strips 0 38 645 0 683

CP25 Rare and declining 

habitat 655,671 38,279 0 0 693,950

CP26 Sediment retention 0 6 0 0 6

CP27 Farmable wetland pilot 

(wetland) 0 0 0 36,641 36,641

CP28 Farmable wetland pilot 

(upland) 0 0 0 89,657 89,657

CP29 Wildlife habitat buffer 

(marginal pasture) 0 1,889 14,464 0 16,353

CP30 Wetland buffer (marginal 

pasture) 0 219 10,906 0 11,125

CP31 Bottomland hardwood 0 58 9,645 0 9,703

CP33 Upland bird habitat 

buffers 0 26 25,623 0 25,649

Unspecified -21 668 130 0 678

Total 31,751,747 645,557 2,298,502 126,299 34,822,105

(Continued From Previous Page)

Acres

General Continuous

Conservation practice CRP sign-up CREP sign-up

Non-CREP

sign-up Farmable wetland Total
Appendix II

Conservation Reserve Program, Farm Service 

Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture

Page 18 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Other widely used conservation practices include creating permanent 

wildlife habitat, preserving existing trees, creating filter strips using grass 

to secure the soil, and restoring wetlands. Together, these six practices 

account for 28,631,268 (82 percent) of the total acres enrolled in CRP.

As indicated in table 3, CRP data were used to support the ecological 

indicator land use (grasslands and shrublands) in the 2002 Heinz Center 

report, The State of the Nation’s Ecosystems.7

 For its calculations, the 

Heinz Center reported on acreage for 14 of the 35 CRP-approved 

conservation practices: introduction of new grasses and legumes, new 

native grasses, permanent wildlife habitat, grass waterways, existing 

grasses and legumes, wildlife food plots, vegetative filter strips, contour 

grass strips, living snow fences, salinity reducing vegetation, alternative 

perennials, filter strips (grass), cross wind traps strips, and rare and 

declining habitat.

7

To assist the Heinz Center with its first ecological indicators report in 2002, FSA analysts 

reviewed prior-year data files to provide the Heinz Center with trend information for 1994 

through 2001. Specifically, the Heinz Center used data issued April 30, 2001, in a report titled 

Summary of Practices Acreages for Active Contracts Beginning in Program Year 1998. 

The latest edition of this annual report was published on August 31, 2004.
Appendix II

Conservation Reserve Program, Farm Service 

Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture

Page 19 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Figure 1: Conservation Reserve Program Budget for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 and 

Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006

Note: Funding levels were adjusted for inflation using a chained gross domestic product (GDP) price 

index based on information from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis 

and the Congressional Budget Office.

Summary According to agency officials, CRP budgets have more than kept pace with 

inflation since fiscal year 2000, an advantage expected to continue with the 

proposed fiscal year 2006 budget. Data collection and analysis of the 

conservation practices and acreages are not likely to entail additional 

expenses. In fiscal year 2005, CRP was funded at $1,937,211,000. For fiscal 

year 2006, the President has requested $2,020,503,000 for the program. In 

view of its recent funding history and long-range financial commitments 

(10- to 15-year contracts), program officials indicated that CRP is wellpositioned to continue to provide data similar in quality and 

comprehensiveness to that used by the Heinz Center in its 2002 report, 

including data for use in the center’s projected 2007 report.

Proposed fiscal year 2006 funding

Fiscal year

Funding level (in millions)

Source: USDA.

0

200

400

600

800

1,000

1,200

1,400

1,600

1,800

2,000

Inflation adjusted (FY ’00 dollars)

Program funds

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 
Appendix II

Conservation Reserve Program, Farm Service 

Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture

Page 20 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

According to agency officials, the data CRP collects to administer its 

contracts are intrinsic to the program and are not affected by policies or 

priorities. For example, unless CRP discontinues support for a particular 

conservation practice, its application (e.g., acreage and locale) can be 

expected to appear in the weekly, monthly, and annual tabulations that 

CRP prepares.

Agency Perspectives 

on Potential Impacts of 

Funding Levels and 

Program Changes

USDA officials provided the following information on funding levels and 

program priorities relative to CRP’s ability to continue providing 

environmental and ecological data comparable with past years:

• The CRP data provided to the Heinz Center will continue to be available 

in the future, even if funding for CRP acreage enrollment were to be 

reduced at some point. This data comes from active CRP contracts 

overseen and managed by FSA’s National CRP Contract Administration 

system (the National CRP Contract File), which, among other things, 

provides monthly and annual tabulations of acreage by conservation 

practice installed. Budget reductions to the Conservation Reserve 

Program would have no direct effect on this data collection and 

reporting process.8

• CRP data may potentially contribute additional ecological and 

environmental information in the future to support Heinz Center 

indicators. For example, CRP data could be used in support of the Heinz 

Center ecological indicators riparian condition and carbon storage, once 

these indicators are better defined by the center’s staff and advisers. 

Riparian condition describes streamside areas using an index that 

combines key factors such as water flows, streambed physical 

condition, riparian vegetation’s composition and structure, and use by 

various species. Carbon storage describes how much carbon—a major 

component of all organisms—is stored in forests.

8

CRP’s computerized data and contract administration system at the FSA center in Kansas 

City, Missouri, requires 2.5 full-time equivalent employees to operate, at a total annual cost 

of about $155,000 per year.
Appendix II

Conservation Reserve Program, Farm Service 

Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture

Page 21 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Glossary of 

Conservation Reserve 

Program Terms

Conservation Practices CP1 New permanent introduced grasses and legumes: a vegetative 

cover of introduced grasses and legumes on eligible cropland that will 

enhance environmental benefits.

CP2 New permanent native grasses: a vegetative cover of native grasses 

on eligible cropland that will enhance environmental benefits.

CP3 New softwood trees (not longleaf): a stand of trees in a timber 

planting that will provide multipurpose forest benefits.

CP3A New hardwood trees: a stand of predominantly hardwood trees in 

a timber planting that will provide multipurpose forest benefits, includes 

Longleaf Pine and Atlantic White Cedar trees.

CP4 Permanent wildlife habitat: a permanent wildlife habitat cover to 

enhance environmental benefits for the wildlife habitat of the designated or 

surrounding areas.

CP5 Field windbreaks: a windbreak established to reduce cropland 

erosion below soil loss tolerance and to enhance the wildlife habitat on the 

designated area.

CP6 Diversions: structures designed to divert water away from farmland 

and farm buildings, and from agricultural waste systems, in order to reduce 

runoff damage, control erosion, and protect terrace systems from 

degrading.

CP7 Erosion control structures: structures such as dikes on river and 

stream banks to prevent loss or damage to land uses and protect adjacent 

facilities. 

CP8 Grass waterways: strips of grass planted where water tends to move 

across a field, planted to prevent gully erosion.
Appendix II

Conservation Reserve Program, Farm Service 

Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture

Page 22 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

CP9 Shallow water areas for wildlife: areas of shallow water (average 

depth 6 to 18 inches) near or within crop fields that are protected by 

permanent trees, shrubs, and grasses.

CP12 Wildlife food plots: plantings of foods for wildlife in plots up to 5 

acres in size.

CP15 Contour grass strips: narrow bands of perennial vegetation 

established across the slope of a crop field and alternated down the slope 

with wider strips of crops. Properly designed and maintained, they can 

reduce soil erosion, minimize transport of sediment and other waterborne 

contaminants, and provide wildlife habitat.

CP16 Shelterbelts: rows of trees, shrubs, or other plants used to reduce 

wind erosion, protect young crops, and control blowing snow. They also 

provide excellent protection from the elements for wildlife, livestock, 

houses, and farm buildings.

CP17 Living snow fences: similar in design to field windbreaks and 

shelterbelts, living snow fences serve the added function of being used to 

help manage snow deposits to protect buildings, roads, and other property. 

They can be designed and placed to help protect nearby areas for livestock, 

provide wildlife cover, and collect snow to enhance soil moisture and 

nearby water supplies.

CP18 Salinity seducing vegetation: plantings of trees or shrubs that 

either install salt-tolerant vegetative cover within a saline seep area or 

establish permanent vegetative cover in areas causing saline seeps.

CP21 Filter strips (grass): strips of grass planted between crops that are 

used to trap sediment, fertilizers, pesticides, and other pollutants from 

surface runoff and subsurface flow before they reach streams and creeks. 

The minimum width is 30 feet, the maximum 120 feet.

CP22 Riparian buffers: trees, shrubs, and grasses planted along stream 

banks to catch pollutants in both surface runoff and groundwater before 

those pollutants reach the stream. Buffers also trap nutrients and sediment. 

Native trees and grasses are planted for this practice. The minimum width 

is 35 feet, the maximum 180 feet.

CP23 Wetland restoration: restores wetlands for return to agricultural 

use by increasing sediment trapping, reducing flood flows, constructing 
Appendix II

Conservation Reserve Program, Farm Service 

Agency, U.S. Department of Agriculture

Page 23 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

barriers such as dams or levees, and introducing grasses and legumes to 

stabilize the soil.

CP24 Cross wind trap strips: one or more strips of permanent, 

vegetative, wind-resistant cover planted perpendicular to the prevailing 

wind to reduce erosion and trap wind-borne sediments and contaminants.

CP29 Wildlife habitat buffer (marginal pastureland): grass, shrub, 

and forb (nongrass herb) cover planted to provide wildlife protection and 

to remove nutrients, sediment, organic matter, pesticides, and other 

pollutants from surface runoff and subsurface flow.

CP30 Wetland buffer (marginal pastureland): planting of vegetative 

cover adjacent or parallel to a stream (with perennial or seasonal flow) to 

remove nutrients, sediment, organic matter, pesticides, and other 

pollutants before they reach the stream.

CP31 Bottomland timber establishment on wetlands: establishing 

stands of trees to control erosion, reduce water and air pollution, promote 

carbon sequestration, and extend wildlife habitat.

CP32 Expired CRP hardwood tree planting on marginal 

pastureland: land established to trees under CP1 that expired on or before 

September 30, 2001, and reoffered to grow hardwood trees.

CP33 Habitual buffers for upland birds: allows for enrollment of field 

borders to provide valuable habitat for quail and other upland birds in 

cropland areas.
Page 24 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Appendix III

Economic Research Service, U.S. Department 

of Agriculture ApendxiI

Background The Economic Research Service (ERS), an agency of the U.S. Department 

of Agriculture (USDA), is the department’s main source of economic 

information and research on agriculture and related topics. Officially 

established in 1961, ERS has its origins in the 1905 formation of the Office 

of Farm Management, which was set up to examine economic aspects of 

farming within USDA’s Bureau of Plant Industry.1

 For nearly a century, ERS 

and its predecessor agencies have supported USDA programs with 

economic data, research, and analysis needed for sound decision making 

and policy formulation. ERS continues to inform and enhance public and 

private decision making on economic and policy issues related to 

agriculture and rural development—the central traditional concerns of 

USDA economic research activity. At the same time, however, ERS’s 

mission has broadened to reflect the changed environment of the nation’s 

food and agricultural system and now includes research on such diverse 

topics as food safety and nutrition, natural resources, conservation, rural 

development, and the environment.2

ERS, along with the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), the 

Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service, and the 

Agricultural Research Service, is located within USDA’s Research, 

Education and Economics Mission Area. The Administrator of ERS reports 

directly to the USDA Undersecretary for Research, Education and 

Economics. ERS carries out its work under a single USDA appropriations 

line item—economic analysis and research. Between fiscal years 2000 and 

2005, ERS funding has consistently amounted to less than 0.4 percent of the 

total USDA discretionary budget, which was $21.2 billion in fiscal year 

2005.

1

From 1922 until 1953, these economic analysis and research functions were carried out by 

the Bureau of Agricultural Economics within USDA and from 1953 until the creation of ERS 

in 1961 by the Agricultural Marketing Service and the Agricultural Research Service. In 1977, 

ERS merged briefly with USDA’s statistical agency and was called the Economics, Statistics 

and Cooperatives Service, but was returned to agency status in 1981. ERS was established 

pursuant to the authority of the Secretary of Agriculture under section 203 of the 

Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946, 7 U.S.C. § 1622. The agency sometimes conducts specific 

studies pursuant to annual appropriations laws and related congressional conference 

reports.

2

Five major areas of research define the scope of ERS activity: (1) a competitive agricultural 

system; (2) a safe food supply; (3) a healthy, well-nourished population; (4) harmony 

between agriculture and the environment; and (5) an enhanced quality of life for rural 

Americans.
Appendix III

Economic Research Service, U.S. Department 

of Agriculture

Page 25 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

ERS’s work is structured among three program divisions and one support 

division: the Food and Rural Economics Division, the Market and Trade 

Economics Division, the Resource Economics Division, and the 

Information Services Division. The ERS program encompasses research, 

analyses of food and commodity markets, policy studies, and development 

of economic and statistical indicators.3

 ERS employs approximately 450 

full-time staff, all in Washington, D.C. For primary data, which it does not 

collect, ERS relies on other agencies, particularly within USDA. Developing 

and analyzing secondary data, on the other hand, are an essential part of 

ERS’s short-term and long-term research efforts.

The Resource Economics Division is the ERS division that produces all 

data used to support indicators in the 2002 Heinz Center report, The State 

of the Nation’s Ecosystems.

4

 This division conducts research in three 

primary areas: (1) the interactions among natural resources, environmental 

quality, and agricultural production and consumption; (2) the economics of 

agricultural research and development and technological change; and (3) 

the structure and financial performance of the agricultural sector. Specific 

research topics within the division’s purview include conservation and 

environmental programs, technology and sustainability, production 

practices and the environment, water use and management, farm finance, 

and farm-sector economic performance. The Resources Economic Division 

has 100 full-time staff, about 75 of whom are economists working in such 

specialty areas as industrial organization, international economics, natural 

resource/environmental economics, production economics/farm 

management, regional economics, and research and 

development/technological change.

One key activity carried out by the Resource Economics Division is the 

estimation of agricultural cash receipts, which are calculated from sales of 

3

ERS disseminates economic information and research results through an array of outlets, 

including: (1) agency published research reports, market analysis and outlook reports; (2) 

the agency’s Web site (www.ers.usda.gov); (3) oral briefings, written staff analyses, and 

congressionally mandated studies; (4) articles published in high-quality journals; and (5) 

papers presented to academic colleagues at annual meetings of scientific and professional 

organizations.

4

Data compiled and reported by ERS’s Resource Economics Division were used exclusively 

or in part to support Heinz Center report indicators for ecosystem extent (a core national 

indicator), production of food and fiber (also a core national indicator), total cropland 

(including pasture and hayland), agricultural inputs and outputs, and monetary value of 

agricultural production.
Appendix III

Economic Research Service, U.S. Department 

of Agriculture

Page 26 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

more than 25 agricultural commodities.5 Cash receipts include data from 

about 150 crop and livestock communities collected by NASS and the 

Commodity Credit Corporation. ERS analyzes and publishes these data 

annually under the title “Farm Income Forecasts.” ERS will continue to 

generate these data in future years. Moreover, these data go directly into 

the Department of Commerce’s National Income and Product Accounts as 

the farm-income component and into the Bureau of Economic Analysis’s 

regional and county estimates of personal income, which are used to 

distribute Federal Revenue Sharing Funds.6

The Heinz Center also employed data from the Resource Economics 

Division’s Agricultural Resources and Environmental Indicators (AREI) 

compilations, specifically for various cropland uses, to support its indicator 

total cropland. Also used by the Heinz Center were the AREI land use 

indicator and NASS’s Crop Production Annual Summary.7

 ERS officials said 

they plan to continue publishing the AREI indicators and will update the 

entire series with new information later this year. The Heinz Center used 

ERS cropland categories when developing its indicators for total cropland 

and ecosystem extent. 

Summary ERS officials indicated that funding for the agency for fiscal year 2005 and 

funding proposed in the President’s budget for fiscal year 2006 (as shown in 

fig. 2) are expected to result in the continuation of research activities and 

5

Cash receipts data were used by the Heinz Center to support its indicator for the monetary 

value of agricultural Production. The gross monetary value of agricultural production 

figures used by the Heinz Center were determined by multiplying the amount of physical 

output of major crops and livestock by the prices (in dollars) received by farmers 

(converted to 1999 dollars).

6

ERS staff is not involved in the collection of the data that serve as the basis for estimates of 

farm cash receipts. The estimating system used to estimate cash receipts comprises an 

integrated set of computer applications with numerous equations that simulate the value of 

marketing from agricultural production. The system incorporates the use of USDA’s 

mainframe computer and ERS’s PC-LAN.

7

As noted previously, ERS does not engage in the primary collection of data, including 

agricultural land use data. Instead, it takes existing data, primarily from NASS field crop 

acreages and makes various adjustments, including adding adjusted acreages of orchards, 

vegetables, and other minor crops, to arrive at an overall figure for cropland used for crops. 

To that figure, ERS adds cropland pasture and idle cropland to arrive at a figure for total 

cropland. The ERS cropland data series is compiled every 5 years, which is the reporting 

cycle for the NASS Census of Agriculture data on which the data series is based.
Appendix III

Economic Research Service, U.S. Department 

of Agriculture

Page 27 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

data analysis such that ERS data will be of similar or superior quality and 

comprehensiveness compared with that used to support ecological 

indicators in the 2002 Heinz Center report.8

 Moreover, they anticipate no 

budget-driven changes to the activities supporting these indicators.

Figure 2: Economic Research Service Budget for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 and 

Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006

Note: Funding levels were adjusted for inflation using a chained GDP price index based on information 

from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Congressional Budget 

Office.

8

While the overall ERS budget request for fiscal year 2006 is $80,700,000, representing a 6 

percent increase over fiscal year 2005 funding, the funding of staff resources dedicated to 

those activities whose data were used to support the ecological indicators in the 2002 Heinz 

Center report is expected to remain at the fiscal year 2005 level of $250,000.

Proposed fiscal year 2006 funding

Fiscal year

Funding level (in millions)

Source: USDA.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Inflation adjusted (FY ’00 dollars)

Appropriated funds

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 
Appendix III

Economic Research Service, U.S. Department 

of Agriculture

Page 28 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Table 4 reflects funding for staff time devoted to the key ERS data analysis 

activities that were cited as sources of data to support Heinz Center 

indicators in the Center’s 2002 report:

Table 4: Cost of Selected ERS Data Analysis Activities for Fiscal Years 2000-2005

Source: USDA.

Agency Perspectives 

on Potential Impacts of 

Funding Levels and 

Program Changes

ERS officials provided the following information on funding levels and 

program priorities relative to ERS’s ability to continue providing 

environmental and ecological data comparable with past years:

• Program priorities in the current ERS strategic plan, including 

increasing the “quality and sustainability of the nation’s agricultural 

resources” by evaluating conservation policies on working and retired 

farmlands and analyzing the dynamics of land use change, should 

enhance ERS’s ability to produce useful data for the planned 2007 

edition of the Heinz Center report.

• Overall ERS funding (adjusted for inflation) has increased by less than 1 

percent from fiscal year 2000 through 2005, while funding for ERS data 

programs increased by 12 percent in the same period. ERS staff time 

devoted to the data activities cited by the Heinz Center as sources of 

support for its indicators increased by 2 percent from fiscal year 2000 

through 2005.

• Data programs are essential to the mission of ERS, an applied economic 

research organization. The agency requires data to provide decision 

makers with accurate, timely, and scientifically rigorous analysis of 

issues facing the agricultural sector, rural America, and consumers. 

Thus, the agency has no plans to reduce its data activities, including 

those cited as data sources by the Heinz Center. Should ERS’s budget be 

cut in the future, the agency would “make every effort to protect the 

Dollars in thousands

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

Agricultural productivity measures $23 $24 $25 $26 $27 $28

Land use data 17 17 18 19 20 20

Cash receipts 164 171 179 186 195 202

Totals $204 $212 $222 $231 $242 $250
Appendix III

Economic Research Service, U.S. Department 

of Agriculture

Page 29 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

scope, extent, and quality of [its] data programs.” Such efforts would be 

undertaken in consultation and collaboration with NASS and other 

USDA agencies that are responsible for collecting the primary data that 

ERS uses. As a last resort, funding reductions could force changes in 

ERS data collection procedures by, for example, necessitating smaller 

sample sizes or less frequent sampling. ERS would adopt such changes 

before actually eliminating any data program.

• ERS could potentially have provided data to support other indicators 

used in the 2002 Heinz Center report. For example, ERS has a research 

program on rural economics and maintains indicators on urban/rural 

differences, definitions of rurality, rural (nonmetropolitan) conditions 

and trends, etc. These data could be relevant to the issues discussed in 

the Heinz Center’s report chapter on farmlands. The data are readily 

available, and ERS plans to continue reporting on a range of rural 

(nonmetropolitan) conditions in the future.
Page 30 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Appendix IV

Forest Inventory and Analysis Program, U.S. 

Forest Service, U.S. Department of 

Agriculture ApendxiIV

Background For nearly 80 years, the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program has 

provided state and national lawmakers, environmental organizations, 

private industry, research institutions, and the media with information 

regarding resource management and protection, wildlife habitat 

conditions, the sustainability of current ecosystem management practices, 

forest health, and the effects of global change. FIA provides periodic data 

on the area and location of forests; the structure and composition of forests 

in terms of species, sizes, and volume; tree growth rates, mortality, and 

removals; patterns of forest ownership; and harvest efficiency and wood 

product flows.

Summary According to FIA officials, the funding for fiscal year 2005 will have only a 

minimal effect on the program’s ability to generate data of a quality and 

comprehensiveness similar to data generated in previous years. 

Furthermore, the fiscal year 2005 funding and the estimated funding for 

fiscal year 2006 would enable the agency to fulfill its overall program 

objectives and incorporate updated information into its annual forest 

inventory. However, for six states the funding levels will provide for only 

remote sensing and not actual data from on-the-ground observations (field 

data), which are needed to facilitate the validation of the remote-sensing 

estimates. The existing field data for the six states are several years old. If 

that information is not updated with new measurements in the next few 

years, FIA officials recognize that for those states, the old data will offer a 

weaker basis for estimating ecological indicators, planning forest 

management activities, and making estimates of the health, productivity, 

and sustainability of the forests.
Appendix IV

Forest Inventory and Analysis Program, U.S. 

Forest Service, U.S. Department of 

Agriculture

Page 31 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Figure 3: Forest Inventory and Analysis Program Budget for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 

and Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006

Note: Funding levels were adjusted for inflation using a chained GDP price index based on information 

from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Congressional Budget 

Office.

Agency officials told us that FIA has no planned program priorities that will 

affect its ability to generate data in the coming years that are comparable to 

data generated in previous years. Furthermore, they told us they believe 

that FIA data will be available in an improved form for the expected 2007 

update of the Heinz Center’s The State of the Nation’s Ecosystems report.

Agency Perspectives 

on Potential Impacts of 

Funding Levels and 

Program Changes

USFS officials provided the following information on funding levels and 

program priorities relative to the FIA program’s ability to continue 

providing environmental and ecological data comparable with past years:

• When the next Heinz Center report is issued in 2007, the FIA program 

will be able to provide some of the most complete data in its history on a 

Proposed fiscal year 2006 funding

Fiscal year

Funding level (in millions)

Source: USDA.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Inflation adjusted (FY ’00 dollars)

Appropriated funds

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 
Appendix IV

Forest Inventory and Analysis Program, U.S. 

Forest Service, U.S. Department of 

Agriculture

Page 32 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

much timelier basis. Newly designed information systems that use new 

software will allow the integration of data and map-based information. 

To allow for meaningful trend analysis, historical data will be loaded 

into these systems. In the case of the 2002 Heinz Center report, the FIA 

data used were 80 percent “old” data (from older, periodic inventory 

systems that were done cyclically, state by state) and 20 percent “new” 

data. By the time the Heinz Center is ready to prepare its next report, 

these proportions will be reversed: Fresh data will be obtained in every 

state each year, so the Heinz Center data could be updated on an annual 

basis with “new” data.1

• The fiscal year 2005 funding and the proposed fiscal year 2006 funding 

could affect the FIA program’s data provided in support of the Heinz 

Center indicators in that the data would be older for six states (Hawaii, 

Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Wyoming, and interior Alaska) that 

include about 23 percent of the nation’s forests. FIA program officials 

plan to continue gathering remote-sensing estimates for these regions, 

but without updated field data, the remote-sensing estimates are 

difficult to validate. Such data, some of which were collected 10 years 

ago, are distinctly less valuable for forest management planning and for 

use in supporting ecological indicators. For example, as estimates of 

forest growth get older, it becomes more difficult to determine 

allowable harvest levels and sustainability.2

• Delay in transitioning to an annualized inventory system is expected to 

have minimal effect on the ability of FIA’s data users to compare data 

from the new inventory system with data generated under the old 

system (i.e., data used in the 2002 Heinz Center report). According to 

program officials, the main reason for delay in implementing a complete 

annualized inventory cycle is the significantly increased cost that this 

1

One major goal of the FIA program’s strategic plan for fiscal years 2004-2008, not yet fully 

achieved, is to implement an FIA program that involves (1) generating 10 state-level reports 

every year over a 5-year cycle (all 50 states would be covered after 5 years), and (2) 

preparing a national summary report every 5 years describing the same forest and ecological 

categories at regional and national scales that are described in the state-level reports.

2

Generally, if net annual growth exceeds annual removals (i.e., what was cut), then the 

forest is not being diminished and the volume of the forest is “sustainable.” However, the 

concept of sustainability is much more complex than whether total volume is sustainable. 

For example, “sustainability” is contingent on species composition, structure, and 

landscape juxtaposition in the “proper” mix to sustain the goods and services we want from 

the forest.
Appendix IV

Forest Inventory and Analysis Program, U.S. 

Forest Service, U.S. Department of 

Agriculture

Page 33 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

change represents. This is particularly the case for Alaska, which 

contains about 17 percent of the nation’s forestland and has vast tracts 

of forestland that are difficult to access for field validation activities. A 

recent inventory of a portion of Alaska indicated that 2.1 million acres of 

what were believed to be trees based on remote-sensing data were 

actually acres of tall shrubs (and thus not forest by definition). FIA 

officials intend to utilize sophisticated remote sensing technologies to 

determine the minimum amount of field data necessary for validation, 

thus optimizing the cost of obtaining data of good quality. However, as 

FIA develops remote-sensing technologies, more ground data are 

generally needed in the short term in order to develop the models that 

will in turn reduce the need for extensive ground-level data. FIA expects 

a “big payoff” from the short-term additional field validation 

investments in the long-run.

• Major challenges to the FIA program in recent years have included the 

following:

• State contributions, which are used to leverage FIA work, have not 

matched increases in federal funding for the FIA program over the 

past few years.3

 Fluctuations in state budgets can undermine FIA 

program goals and associated data collection activities. Historically, 

states provided about 15 to 20 percent of total annual funding for the 

FIA program. But in fiscal year 2004, the percentage fell to an all-time 

low of 12 percent.

• Assessments made at the department or agency level, which are 

generalized reductions of FIA program funds for such things as GSA 

rent, worker compensation, unemployment compensation, transit 

subsidies, and the National Finance, Visual Communication, and 

National Information Technology Centers, have risen. Such 

assessments rose from just over $1 million for fiscal year 1999 to an 

3

According to Forest Service officials responsible for the FIA, Congress in April 1999 

determined that the cost of the annualized inventory was too high and instructed FIA to 

complete, annually, 15 percent of all plots in each eastern state and 10 percent of all plots in 

each western state (and 7 years for complete plots in the East and 10 years for complete 

plots in the West). These activities, also outlined in the FIA strategic plan, are collectively 

known as FIA’s “base program.” FIA indicated that it was the intent of Congress that states 

participate financially to bring the coverage up to 20 percent annually in each state. 

Currently, 25 states provide funds to meet this objective, primarily in the East. Any increase 

in the number or percentage of plots measured annually would be an enhancement at the 

client’s expense, known as the “extended program.”
Appendix IV

Forest Inventory and Analysis Program, U.S. 

Forest Service, U.S. Department of 

Agriculture

Page 34 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

estimated $5.7 million for 2006. While FIA program funding increased 

by approximately $5 million from fiscal year 2004 to 2005, about 

$900,000 of the increase went to assessments.

• FIA officials are exploring new ways to use and deliver FIA data. Spatial 

analysis and remote-sensing technologies are being coupled with fieldsampling verification activities and will produce improved spatial 

products, such as maps of known statistical quality that will be relied 

upon more heavily for effective and timely inventories.4

 In cooperation 

with the Forest Health Monitoring Program, the National Forest System, 

and the Remote Sensing Applications Center, FIA is using these 

technologies to develop maps showing information on forest types, 

biomass, fuel loading, and fire risks. FIA is currently performing 

accuracy assessments and peer reviews of these maps.

4

The initial phase of the sampling process is done by remote sensing. In this phase, remotely 

sensed data is used to estimate the area of forest and nonforest land. Then, in the field, the 

forest land is sampled to acquire information about and validate various attributes, such as 

biomass. These validated data can then be used to develop much more detailed and useful 

maps of forests and their attributes.
Page 35 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Appendix V

National Agricultural Statistics Service, U.S. 

Department of Agriculture ApendxiV

Background The history of collecting data on U.S. agriculture extends back to the 

earliest days of the nation. In 1791, President Washington wrote to several 

farmers requesting information on land values, crops, yields, livestock 

prices, and taxes. It was, in effect, the nation’s first agricultural survey. The 

next major step forward in agricultural data collection came in 1839, when 

the Commissioner of Patents prevailed upon Congress to designate $1,000 

from the Patent Office Fund for “collecting and distributing seeds, carrying 

out agricultural investigations, and procuring agricultural statistics.” Then, 

in 1840, detailed agricultural information was collected through the first 

Census of Agriculture, which provided a nationwide inventory of 

agricultural production. When the 1840 federal census information arrived, 

the Commissioner of Patents was able to combine it with other information 

to estimate production by states and territories. These estimates, made 

yearly through 1844, established the general pattern of annual agricultural 

reports that continues to this day.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) was itself established by 

Congress in 1862, and its first crop report appeared in 1863. The National 

Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) traces its roots to that year, when 

USDA established a Division of Statistics. The creation of USDA’s Crop 

Reporting Board in 1905 (now called the Agricultural Statistics Board) was 

another landmark in the development of a nationwide statistical service for 

agriculture. A USDA reorganization in 1961 led to the creation of the 

Statistical Reporting Service, known today as the National Agricultural 

Statistics Service (NASS), of which the Agricultural Statistics Board is a 

part. The board prepares and releases the NASS reports. It consists of a 

permanent chairperson, secretary and other NASS staff members chosen to 

participate in the preparation of a specific report based on their detailed 

knowledge of a particular topic.

The mission of NASS is to provide timely, accurate, and useful statistics in 

service to U.S. agriculture.1

 NASS’s Agricultural Statistics Program is 

responsible for collecting, processing, analyzing, and disseminating 

statistical information on agricultural production, market structures, 

economics, and environmental impacts. Each year, the Agricultural 

Statistics Program conducts hundreds of surveys and prepares reports 

1

NASS activities are based on the Secretary of Agriculture’s authority under the Organic Act 

of 1862 that created the Department of Agriculture (USDA), 7 U.S.C. § 2204; section 203 of 

the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946, 7 U.S.C. § 1622; and the Census of Agriculture Act of 

1997, 7 U.S.C. § 2204g.
Appendix V

National Agricultural Statistics Service, U.S. 

Department of Agriculture

Page 36 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

covering virtually every facet of U.S. agriculture, including production and 

supplies of food and fiber, prices paid and received by farmers, and farm 

labor and wages. NASS publications cover agricultural products and topics 

as diverse as production and prices of traditional agricultural crops (e.g., 

corn and wheat), specialty crops (e.g., mushrooms and flowers), number of 

live births of calves, number of hogs slaughtered, and land in farm use. In 

any given year, NASS publishes more than 400 national reports for 120 crop 

and 45 livestock items. NASS’s 46 state statistical offices (also called field 

offices) publish data about many of the same topics for local audiences.2

In addition to the many statistical activities directly related to its mission, 

NASS conducts surveys for and lends technical assistance expertise to 

other federal agencies, state governments, and private organizations. NASS 

provides support and assistance in the areas of questionnaire and sample 

design, data collection and editing, analysis of survey results, and training. 

Among its more notable projects, NASS conducted a farm injury survey for 

the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health; carried out a 

pilot study on Native American contributions to agriculture for the 

Intertribal Agriculture Council; and surveyed producers’ sources of 

agricultural information for USDA’s Office of Communications. Field 

offices have also become increasingly involved in performing special 

surveys in cooperation with land-grant universities and state departments 

of agriculture. Data have been collected on such diverse subjects as 

specialty fruits and vegetables, nursery products, waste management in 

rural communities, and producers’ opinions of farm bill proposals.

NASS’s field offices serve all states and Puerto Rico. These offices publish 

more than 8,000 reports a year. Through these field offices, NASS conducts 

its many surveys by relying on data from state agriculture departments, 

land-grant universities, and the agricultural industry.3

 The field offices are 

the primary NASS units to collect, process, evaluate, and estimate 

agricultural data. Each field office collects and summarizes data, prepares 

estimates, and submits them to the Agricultural Statistics Board in 

Washington, D.C. Production forecasts for some products are considered

2

NASS has about 1,100 employees divided between its Washington, D.C., headquarters and 

state statistical offices (field offices).

3

NASS maintains a series of cooperative agreements with its various in-state sources. 

Cooperative federal-state programs first began in 1917.
Appendix V

National Agricultural Statistics Service, U.S. 

Department of Agriculture

Page 37 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

“speculative” because these products are traded on commodity markets.4

Thus, field offices send the board data and comments on these products via 

encoded computer transmissions. Preparing official crop estimates 

involves tight security until these data are publicly released according to a 

set schedule each year.

Since 1997, NASS has had responsibility for developing, administering, 

compiling and reporting data from the quinquennial Census of Agriculture. 

In prior years, the agricultural census was conducted by the Commerce 

Department’s Bureau of the Census. The transfer of responsibility reduced 

response burden on the public and made planning, collection, and release 

of agricultural census results more efficient. The Census of Agriculture is 

the most comprehensive source of agricultural statistics available and the 

only one with uniform agricultural data for every U.S. county.5

 It is the only 

attempt to enumerate every farm and ranch operation in the country.6 Data 

are collected every 5 years on a wide array of topics, including corporate 

structure, chemicals employed in agriculture, energy expenditures, farm 

programs, irrigated land, machinery and equipment, land use and 

ownership, market value of products, and production expenses. Using 

mailings, telephone calls, and rare personal visits by enumerators, data are 

collected and then aggregated to protect confidentiality and proprietary 

information. The census is released in print, on CD-ROM, and on the 

4

Corn, wheat, cotton, soybeans, and oranges are “speculative” crops, but NASS maintains 

strict secrecy for other crop reports, as well, in order to forestall economic advantages from 

early knowledge.

5

The Census of Agriculture Act of 1997 § 2, 7 U.S.C. § 2204g, requires the Census of 

Agriculture. It provides county-level census coverage and is administered via mail-out/mailback data collection. USDA uses census data to provide local farm income and production 

costs, evaluate agricultural programs and policies, administer farm programs, and plan 

contingencies for disease or pest emergencies. The Farm Credit Administration uses the 

data to evaluate farmer loan programs. Congress uses census data to oversee farm programs 

and assess legislative proposals. State and local governments and farm organizations use 

census data to analyze and develop policies on land use, water use and irrigation, rural 

development, and farmland assessments. Agribusinesses use census statistics to develop 

sales territories, and determine the best locations for wholesale and retail outlets. Rural 

electric companies use statistics to forecast future energy needs.

6

The definition of a “farm” has changed several times over the history of agricultural data 

collection. Since 1975, a farm has been defined by joint agreement among USDA, the Office 

of Management and Budget, and the Bureau of the Census as “any place from which $1,000 

or more of agricultural products (crops and livestock) were sold or normally would be sold 

during the year under consideration.” USDA estimates include institutional farms, 

experimental and research farms, and Indian reservations. The department counts 

government payments as part of farm sales.
Appendix V

National Agricultural Statistics Service, U.S. 

Department of Agriculture

Page 38 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Internet. In print, volume 1 of the census contains “U.S. National Level 

Data” and “U.S. State Level Data.” Other volumes, 50 in total, present data 

for individual states. The Census of Agriculture was last conducted in 2002. 

The next census will provide statistics for calendar year 2007.7

Congress has mandated that several federal programs use NASS data in 

their operations and when making payment calculations for program 

beneficiaries. For example, NASS data are used by other USDA programs in 

the calculation of countercyclical payments and crop insurance;8

 and the 

Agriculture Secretary is required to report, using data from NASS’s Census 

of Agriculture, the rate of increase or decrease by which socially 

disadvantaged groups participate in agriculture.9

 In addition, NASS 

conducts annual data user meetings to assess the relevance of its work to 

government, business, academic, and private applications.

In its 2002 report, The State of the Nation’s Ecosystems, the Heinz Center 

used NASS data in support of three ecological indicators. The indicator for 

total cropland was based on the 1997 census, which used data from 1945 

through 1997.10 The indicator for major crop yields was based on NASS 

historical track records, on United States crop production data for May 

2001, and annual Agricultural Statistics for 2001. Finally, the indicator for 

production of cattle was based on data from NASS surveys of livestock 

herd size, which are conducted and reported in January and July of each 

year. Data on cattle and calves come from state-level reports by NASS, and 

data on the value of cattle are from NASS Agricultural Statistics for 2000. 

NASS Historical Track Records are national-level statistics that include 

historic estimates and final plantings for crops, grain stocks, and livestock. 

U.S. crop production data are tabulated annually for more than 100 

products.11 The Heinz Center used crop production records from 1950 

7

Funds for the Census of Agriculture, a separate line item in NASS’s budget, are 

appropriated and available until obligated.

8

7 U.S.C. § 7914(b)(1).

9

16 U.S.C. § 590h(b)(5)(B)(v)(II).

10The Heinz Center used data from the 1997 Census of Agriculture for its total cropland 

indicator when generating the 2002 report, The State of the Nation’s Ecosystems. Census 

data on Total Cropland were collected using mail-in forms, direct enumeration, and 

telephone and personal interviews.

11The Heinz Center indicator was supported with data from NASS Historical Track Records 

and U.S. crop production data, both published in 2001.
Appendix V

National Agricultural Statistics Service, U.S. 

Department of Agriculture

Page 39 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

through 1998 to prepare its major crop yields, augmented by NASS annual 

statistics for 1999 and 2000. While there are numerous legislative mandates 

for statistical data in the U.S. crop production reports, such as for cotton 

acreage, crop reports throughout the growing season, and miscellaneous 

fruits and vegetables, none specifically mention any of the data used in the 

Heinz Center report.

Summary NASS officials indicated that actual funding for fiscal year 2005 and 

projected funding for fiscal 2006 will have no adverse effect on the ability 

of NASS programs to generate data comparable in quality and 

comprehensiveness with data from previous years. The officials indicated, 

in particular, that there should be no effect on the ability of its programs to 

generate data used to support indicators in the 2002 Heinz Center report. In 

important respects, NASS officials expect their data to improve in the 

future. For example, the agency plans to continue efforts begun in 2004 to 

restore and modernize its survey and estimation programs. In fiscal year 

2006, NASS expects to achieve target precision levels for 83 percent of its 

data, a 12 percent improvement over 2004 levels. The long-term target is 90 

percent precision.

The NASS budget contains two line items: agricultural estimates and the 

Census of Agriculture. Total appropriated funds for NASS for fiscal years 

2000 through 2005 and proposed funding for fiscal year 2006 are shown in 

figure 4.
Appendix V

National Agricultural Statistics Service, U.S. 

Department of Agriculture

Page 40 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Figure 4: National Agricultural Statistics Service Budget for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 

and Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006

Note: Funding levels were adjusted for inflation using a chained GDP price index based on information 

from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Congressional Budget 

Office.

Agency Perspectives 

on Potential Impacts of 

Funding Levels and 

Program Changes

NASS officials provided the following information on funding levels and 

program priorities relative to NASS’s ability to continue providing 

environmental and ecological data comparable with past years:

• Funding for NASS typically fluctuates over a 5-year cycle, rising around 

the time of activities related to the conduct and analysis of the Census of 

Agriculture and falling thereafter. Because of the cyclical pattern of the 

census, $29,115,000 of the proposed fiscal year 2006 funding total of 

$145,159,000 will remain available until obligated for the 2007 census’s 

preparation and publication. Funding levels will rise in a predictable 

manner within the funding cycle for the 2007 census, peaking in fiscal

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

Inflation adusted (FY ’00 dollars)

Appropriated funds

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 

Proposed fiscal year 2006 funding

Fiscal year

Funding level (in millions)

Source: NASS.
Appendix V

National Agricultural Statistics Service, U.S. 

Department of Agriculture

Page 41 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

year 2008 when the census tabulations are made.12 Such cyclical 

fluctuations will have no effect on NASS’s ability to generate data of 

similar quality and comprehensiveness when compared with data from 

previous years.

• NASS’s Agricultural Estimates budget more closely parallels inflation as 

it supports routine activities that occur throughout the year. For 

example, appropriations for Agricultural Estimates were $79 million in 

fiscal year 2000, and increased yearly to $82 million (fiscal year 2001), 

$84 million (fiscal year 2002), $93 million (fiscal year 2003), $103 million 

(fiscal year 2004), and $106 million (fiscal year 2005). The President has 

proposed a budget of $116,044,000 for Agricultural Estimates in fiscal 

year 2006. Using $7 million from this increase, NASS plans to continue 

efforts begun in 2004 to restore and modernize its survey and estimation 

programs. NASS has set three goals: to (1) restore sample sizes that 

have been reduced in recent years; (2) provide staff to manage surveys 

and better review and summarize data; and (3) meet research, training, 

travel, and other expenses. In fiscal year 2006, NASS expects to achieve 

target precision levels for 83 percent of its data, a 12 percent 

improvement over fiscal year 2004 levels. (The long-term target is 90 

percent).13

• Lacking appropriations to cover the full cost of congressionally 

mandated salary increases, NASS finds its annual operating budget 

constrained, necessitating economies elsewhere, such as less-frequent 

sampling. For example, fewer farms in a state might be sampled in the 

preparation of crop estimates, or production figures might aggregate 

several crop types.14 However, NASS officials cited no examples of such 

economies affecting the data used by the Heinz Center to support its 

indicators. In addition, in an effort to compensate for recent unfunded 

12In the case of the 2002 Census of Agriculture, the highest level of appropriations occurred 

in fiscal year 2003, when the 2002 data were collected, compiled, and analyzed.

13Funding for NASS varies with sample sizes to improve precision and the coverage 

provided on U.S. agriculture.

14However, NASS officials cited no examples of such economies affecting the data used by 

the Heinz Center to support its indicators. In addition, they noted that increased workloads 

were being accomplished with fewer staff primarily through efficiencies in methodologies 

and technology, such as enhanced electronic data capture and data analysis procedures. For 

example, upgraded computers can now tabulate and process data streams directly from 

field offices, requiring less work at USDA headquarters.
Appendix V

National Agricultural Statistics Service, U.S. 

Department of Agriculture

Page 42 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

pay increases, the proposed fiscal year 2006 NASS budget includes a net 

increase of $16.7 million, with $1.3 million designated for salary costs.

• Beginning in 2004, NASS instituted an Agricultural Restoration Initiative 

to restore the collection of certain statistical data. For example, NASS 

had dealt with budget shortfalls in fiscal year 2003 by dropping 

“objective yield” cotton surveys, and the initiative restored them. Crop 

production forecasts and estimates employ both subjective and 

objective probability surveys. Subjective evaluations come from a 

sample of farmers, ranchers, and agribusinesses. In objective yield 

probability surveys, selected fields are visited during the growing season 

by enumerators, who count the plants and later the actual ears, pods, or 

bolls produced. These are accurate measurements, but are also labor 

intensive and costly, requiring enumerators to walk into fields and 

record growth in randomly sampled plots. Less-intensive surveys collect 

most data by mail or telephone.

• The results of the 2002 Census of Agriculture were published in 2004. 

The five-year schedule for the census means that data from the 2007 

Census of Agriculture is scheduled to be released in February 2009, too 

late to be used in the next iteration of the Heinz Center report, in 2007. 

However, with the continuous upgrading by the Heinz Center of its own 

Web site, the center will add data for its ecological indicators as they 

become available from the 2007 census and from other sources.

• A Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) review of NASS was 

conducted by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for the fiscal 

year 2006 budget. It found the Census of Agriculture and annual cropreporting programs to be rated “moderately effective” because there 

were no recent external reviews of the program data. Specifically, OMB 

concluded that reviews by USDA data users meeting in 2002 and 2003, 

and a report by USDA’s Advisory Committee on Agricultural Statistics, 

did not provide sufficient “independent evaluations of sufficient scope 

and quality conducted on a regular basis” to evaluate its effectiveness 

and relevance. NASS is now working to establish an external, 

independent evaluation system. In most other respects, OMB found 

NASS’s performance to be exemplary, granting perfect scores of 100 

percent for program purpose and for design and management.
Page 43 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Appendix VI

National Resources Inventory, Natural 

Resources Conservation Service, U.S. 

Department of Agriculture ApendxiVI

Background The National Resources Inventory (NRI), conducted by the Natural 

Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in cooperation with Iowa State 

University’s Center for Survey Statistics and Methodology, is a statistical 

survey of land use and natural resource conditions and trends on U.S. 

nonfederal lands.1

 It produces a nationally consistent database capturing 

data on land cover and use, soil erosion, prime farmland, soils, wetlands, 

habitat diversity, selected conservation practices, and related resource 

attributes. Information derived from the NRI is used by a wide variety of 

users, including natural resource managers; policymakers; analysts; 

consultants; the media; other Federal agencies; state governments; 

universities; and environmental, commodity, and farm groups. These users 

employ NRI information to formulate effective public policies, fashion 

agricultural and natural resource legislation, develop state and national 

conservation programs, allocate Department of Agriculture (USDA) 

financial and technical assistance to address natural resource concerns, 

and enhance the public’s understanding of natural resource and 

environmental issues.

The NRI was first conducted in 1977, then every 5 years through 1997. In 

2000, the NRI transitioned to an annual inventory process to provide more 

timely data to support the development and assessment of agricultural and 

conservation policies and programs. Data collected from 1982 to 2003 

enable trend analysis extending over 21 years. Data used for the most 

current NRI were primarily collected using high-resolution aerial 

photography, field office records, historical records and data, and a limited 

number of on-site visits.

1

According to NRI definitions, nonfederal lands include privately owned land, tribal and 

trust land, and lands controlled by state and local governments.
Appendix VI

National Resources Inventory, Natural 

Resources Conservation Service, U.S. 

Department of Agriculture

Page 44 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

• The primary sampling units in the NRI are areas of land called segments. 

Segments vary in size, from 40 acres to 640 acres. Data such as urban 

land and water area are collected for an entire segment. Detailed data on 

soil properties and land use are sampled from random points within the 

segment. Generally, there are three sample points per segment, but 40-

acre segments contain two points. Some data variables, such as total 

land area, federally owned land, and area in large water bodies, are 

collected on a census basis separate from the sample survey. A typical 

national sample contains about 70,000 segments.2

• Two possible ways to classify the surface of the Earth in the NRI are 

land cover and land use. Land cover is the kind of vegetation, 

constructed material (such as roads or buildings), or natural material 

(such as sand, water, or ice) that actually covers the Earth’s surface. 

Categories for land use include crop production, residential zones, and 

wildlife habitat. In the NRI, all land is placed into mutually exclusive and 

exhaustive categories, called “coveruse” categories. As the name 

suggests, the classification is based on both the land cover and the land 

use. For example, land is classified as urban if it has a certain building 

density, even if the predominant cover is trees. Roads in rural areas are 

classified as roads, while roads within the urban area are classified as 

urban area. Other coveruse categories include cultivated cropland, 

forest, rangeland, and pastureland.

The NRI program continues to evolve as cost-effective methods are 

developed to collect more timely and relevant data that address emerging 

agricultural and environmental issues. New inventory approaches will 

incorporate new tools, methodologies, and technologies. In addition to the 

transition to an annual NRI report, efforts are under way to implement a 

continuous inventory process, incorporate various assessment tools for 

measuring resource health, and more fully use inventory data for modeling 

and policy analysis.

Summary NRI and NRCS officials indicated that actual NRI funding for fiscal year 

2005 and funding proposed in the President’s budget request for fiscal year 

2006 (as shown in fig. 5) are expected to assure the continuation of data 

collection and analysis, and will allow for data generation of similar quality 

2

The national annual sample size of 70,000 segments is selected from the NRI framework 

sample of 300,000 segments, which were used for the 5-year cycle through 1997.
Appendix VI

National Resources Inventory, Natural 

Resources Conservation Service, U.S. 

Department of Agriculture

Page 45 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

and comprehensiveness when compared with data from previous years. 

The officials indicated, in particular, that data used in the 2002 Heinz 

Center report, The State of the Nation’s Ecosystems, are expected to be 

available with similar or improved quality and comprehensiveness when 

compared with data from prior years.

Figure 5: National Resources Inventory Program Budget for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 

and Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006

Note: Funding levels were adjusted for inflation using a chained GDP price index based on information 

from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Congressional Budget 

Office.

In addition, agency officials reported that planned program activities will 

improve the ability of NRI to produce data in the coming years comparable 

with data generated in previous years. As used in the 2002 Heinz Center 

report, agency officials stated that data are expected to be available in a

Proposed fiscal year 2006 funding

Fiscal year

Funding level (in millions)

Source: USDA.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Inflation adjusted (FY ’00 dollars)

Appropriated funds

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 
Appendix VI

National Resources Inventory, Natural 

Resources Conservation Service, U.S. 

Department of Agriculture

Page 46 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

similar form for the Heinz Center’s expected 2007 follow-on indicator 

report, with new estimates available at both national and regional scales.3

Agency Perspectives 

on Potential Impacts of 

Funding Levels and 

Program Changes

NRI and NRCS program officials provided the following information on 

funding levels and program priorities relative to NRI’s ability to continue 

providing environmental and ecological data comparable with past years:

• Specific funding amounts for the various NRI activities for fiscal years 

2000 through 2005, as well as proposed funding for fiscal year 2006, are 

portrayed in table 5 (aggregate totals are presented in fig. 5):

Table 5: NRI Funding Levels for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 and Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006

Source: USDA.

a

Current fiscal year 2005 estimate.

b

President’s fiscal year 2006 budget.

3

The 2003 Annual NRI data are being prepared for public release starting in spring of 2005. 

These data will be used to produce a series of reports, available at the national and regional 

level, covering status and trends in use of the nation’s rural land, soil erosion, wetlands, 

irrigation patterns, and conversion of rural lands to urban uses. The Heinz Center report 

used NRI data on land use extent and trends for cropland and cropland erosion; the 2003 

annual NRI data should provide comparable estimates. The Annual 2005 NRI will be the first 

of the annual inventories to include sub-state-level estimates for many topics previously 

reported through the 5-year inventory cycle, with the exception that most sub-state-level 

trend estimates will still have unacceptable levels of statistical uncertainty.

Dollars in thousands

Activity 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005a 2006b

Resources inventory supportc $1,076 $1,175 $1,176 $1,180 $1,211 $5,622 $5,668

Data collection, photo-interpretation and 

supportd 8,497 15,573 11,020 14,907 9,844 4,359 3,700

On-site data collectione 882 3,389 3,933 4,006

Imageryf 3,400 5,789 4,074 5,700 5,636 5,920 6,000

Statistical unitg 1,100 1,700 1,500 1,600 2,213 2,000 2,400

Remote-sensing laboratories 

(established June 2004)h 9,600 10,000

NRI-CEAP data collection (initiated 

2003)i 3,470 4,409 3,522 4,000

Total $14,073 $24,237 $17,770 $27,739 $26,702 $34,956 $35,744
Appendix VI

National Resources Inventory, Natural 

Resources Conservation Service, U.S. 

Department of Agriculture

Page 47 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

c

State-level staff support–represents one-quarter staff year per state for fiscal year 2000 through fiscal 

year 2004, and a full staff year per state for fiscal year 2005 and fiscal year 2006.

d

Derived based on the number of sample points selected for photo-interpretation data collection in the 

survey year and the staff time required to complete the inventory cycle.

e

Derived based on the number of on-site points for data collection and the estimated amount of staff 

time required for conducting the on-site data acquisition.

f

Obtained via contract, this number reflects the amount expended for acquisition of high-resolution 

imagery.

g

Obtained via contract (cooperative agreement), this number reflects the amount allocated in the fiscal 

year for statistical services from Iowa State University.

h

Fiscal year funds allocated for contracted data collection staff, facilities, and infrastructure.

i

Fiscal year funds transferred to National Agricultural Statistical Service (NASS), plus NRCS field office 

support for conducting the NRI Conservation Effects Assessment Project (NRI-CEAP).

• Changes between 2004 and 2005 funding estimates for remote-sensing 

or photo-interpretation activities constitute the difference in overall NRI 

funding for these years. This should not be interpreted as a general 

increasing trend in overall NRI funding levels. At the time, photointerpretation data collection and support activities were shifted from 

21 nationally distributed Inventory Collection and Coordination Sites to 

newly-formed Remote Sensing Laboratories (RSL) as part of NRCS 

outsourcing initiatives. Fiscal year 2004 funding for this shift included 

only RSL start-up costs, while fiscal year 2005 funding included 

additional costs for interpretation of the imagery obtained in 2004.

• Preparation of imagery for photo-interpretation acquired in 2004 is in 

progress—delayed by the transition to the new inventory 

organization and structure, as well as by unanticipated problems in 

securing RSL facilities and staffing. The estimates provided for 

photo-interpretation in 2004 (as shown in table 5) reflect completion 

of 2003 Annual NRI photo-interpretation, preparation for conducting 

2004 and 2005 photo-interpretation, and limited state-level photointerpretation activities, such as acquiring information for sample 

points from field office files.

• The shift to the RSL structure, along with the adoption of improved 

digital technology, and the acquisition of higher-resolution imagery, 

will enhance quality assurance and control procedures for data 

collection and statistical processing. Consolidation of data collection 

and interpretation under full-time, permanently staffed RSLs will 

facilitate stricter adherence to rigorous data collection and quality 

assurance protocols based on scientific principles, will improve data 

confidentiality, and will improve security requirements for 

safeguarding data. Plans are being developed for additional quality 
Appendix VI

National Resources Inventory, Natural 

Resources Conservation Service, U.S. 

Department of Agriculture

Page 48 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

assurance components for the NRI, including a calibration study and 

more comprehensive data review procedures.

• The transition to an annual NRI provides continued capacity for longterm trend analysis while accelerating the acquisition and delivery of 

new information on natural resource conditions and trends. However, 

the scale of NRI estimates is affected during this transition to full 

implementation of the Annual NRI approach. It will take a number of 

years before the Annual NRI provides reliability levels comparable with 

those of the 1997 NRI. The 2001 Annual NRI provided national scale 

estimates for a limited number of topics. The 2002 Annual NRI provided 

national and regional scale estimates, but again on a limited number of 

topics. Estimates from the 2003 and 2004 Annual NRIs will cover more 

topics and provide estimates at finer scales. Reliability levels for results 

from the 2005 Annual NRI should approach those from the 1997 NRI, 

with the exception that many sub-state-level trend estimates will still 

have unacceptable levels of statistical uncertainty.

• An expansion of the NRI to include a number of issues of national 

significance is expected with respect to assessment of the 

environmental benefits of conservation practices, measurement of soil 

quality, and development of nonfederal grazing land sampling protocols.

• The Conservation Effects Assessment Project (CEAP) was formed in 

2003 as a five-year effort to study the collective environmental 

benefits of conservation projects on agricultural lands implemented 

through 2002 Farm Bill programs. It is composed of two parts: a 

nationwide assessment of conservation benefits and more in-depth 

studies of those benefits in 20 selected watersheds. Specifically, 

CEAP will evaluate conservation practices and management systems 

for nutrient, manure, pest management, buffer systems, tillage, 

irrigation, and drainage practices, as well as for soil quality 

enhancement, wildlife establishment, and wetland protection and 

restoration. As NRI is used as the sampling basis for estimating 

environmental benefits of conservation practices, the inventory’s 

cropland field sample points will be used in conjunction with 

National Agricultural Statistical Service (NASS) farmer surveys to 

study farm-field-level management and data on conservation 

practices. The CEAP assessments will be reported annually starting 

in 2006.
Appendix VI

National Resources Inventory, Natural 

Resources Conservation Service, U.S. 

Department of Agriculture

Page 49 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

• Beginning with the 2003 NRI, new protocols were introduced to 

improve the information available on nonfederal grazing land—

rangeland, pastureland, and grazed forestland. Data collected during 

2003, 2004, and 2005 will be used to provide estimates on rangeland 

conditions by employing the updated field-based inventory protocols. 

Improvements in field-based inventory protocols for pastureland and 

grazed forestland are under development and are planned for 

inclusion in future annual NRI data collection efforts.

• A Soil Conditioning Index (SCI) will be developed for each NRI sample 

site that uses NRI data on soil type, characteristics, and interpretations, 

along with historical information on land use, management practices, 

erosion, and historical climate data. This index will quantify cropping 

sequences, tillage, and other management influences on soil organic 

matter content, which serves as an indicator of soil quality. Future NRI 

reports will present long-term trends in soil quality using this index.

• A February 2004 Office of Management and Budget Program 

Assessment Rating Tool review on the NRI indicated that NRI has a 

“results not demonstrated” rating, stating that “improvements are 

needed in the NRI’s long-term performance measures.” The NRCS 

response includes expanded language and clarification of plans to 

provide updated natural resources information to the scientific 

community, decision makers, and the public on an annual basis 

(Annual NRI). The Annual NRI process will address more resource 

concerns, at greater levels of geographic reliability, and increasing 

levels of data accuracy (statistical reliability) over time. Ongoing and 

expanded onsite data collection activities for increased data quality 

(ground truthing), support of new measures such as grazing land 

health, and reporting on conservation program environmental effects 

(e.g., reductions in surface water pollution from agricultural runoff) 

will increase the utility of the data set. The next phase in long-term 

measure development is to establish targets and associated 

performance periods. These measures and targets then will be 

reviewed for approval by agency leadership. The present schedule 

calls for completing this effort by the end of the third quarter of 2005.
Page 50 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Appendix VII

National Survey on Recreation and the 

Environment, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. 

Department of Agriculture ApendxiVI

Background The National Survey on Recreation and the Environment (NSRE) is the 

latest in a continuing series of surveys begun in 1960 as the National 

Recreation Survey (NRS).1

 The NSRE serves as the only consistent source 

of recreation participation data for the U.S. population, providing outdoor 

recreation trend and demand data on regional and national scales. The 

NSRE serves the data needs of federal land management and other 

agencies (including the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, 

National Park Service, Environmental Protection Agency, and National 

Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), as well as state and other 

governmental agencies, educational institutions, and private-sector 

organizations. It is a collaborative, interagency effort that combines data 

needs across programs of different sponsoring agencies that have different 

legislative mandates for evaluating and reporting outdoor recreation and 

related information.

The current NSRE, NSRE 2005-2006, is the eighth in the continuing series of 

U.S. national recreation surveys.2

 Although similar to the previous surveys, 

it explores the outdoor recreational needs and environmental interests of 

the American people in greater depth. Reflecting continued growth of 

interest in outdoor recreation and the natural environment, NSRE 2005-

2006 is an in-the-home phone survey of over 40,000 households across all 

ethnic groups throughout the United States. Survey questions broadly 

address such areas as outdoor recreation participation, demographics, 

household structure, lifestyles, environmental attitudes, natural resource 

values (e.g., concerning wilderness), constraints to participation, and 

attitudes toward management policies. For example, the NSREs seek 

1

The first NRS, renamed the NSRE in 1990, was conducted by the now defunct 

congressionally established Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission (ORRRC). 

Between 1960 and 1982, four additional surveys in the series were conducted, keeping to the 

schedule recommended by ORRRC. Financial constraints eliminated the next NRS, and 10 

years elapsed until the next survey, the 1994-1995 NSRE. This was the first NSRE to address 

outdoor recreational uses of coastal and ocean resources. The management of the NSRE 

was turned over to the Forest Service by the National Park Service in 1987-1988. NSRE 2000-

2001 is the latest to be completed and reported.

2

The aim of the NSRE is to repeat the core data collection cycle every 5 years in order to be 

able to describe trends. NSRE 2005-2006 was recently begun after receiving the approval of 

the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration (NOAA) portion of NSRE 2005-2006 was under way as of February 2005. 

Additional content will be added to the survey as funding becomes available. The full cycle 

of the survey, generating 40,000 responses, is expected to run through calendar year 2006, 

perhaps lasting into 2007. The approximate cost for data collection is estimated to be about 

$900,000, of which the Forest Service expects to cover $150,000 or about 17 percent.
Appendix VII

National Survey on Recreation and the 

Environment, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. 

Department of Agriculture

Page 51 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

information on participation in such outdoor activities as visiting nature 

centers, bird-watching, hunting, backpacking, camping and rock climbing, 

as well as participation in these various activities by age and ethnic groups. 

The information resulting from the NSREs can be reported both nationally 

and on a regional basis.

The NSRE is managed by a unit of the Forest Service’s Southern Research 

Station in Athens, Georgia. Forest Service direct funding for the data 

collection phases of the NSRE comes from the Forest Service’s Research 

and Development (R&D) and State and Private Forestry appropriation 

accounts. The Forest Service share of the total NSRE data design and 

collection costs has typically amounted to just over 40 percent, not 

including in-kind contributions (such as scientist and technician salaries, 

technical services, and administrative support).3

 These funds are used for 

cooperative agreements with universities, specifically with the University 

of Tennessee, which collects the data by phone interviews, and with the 

University of Georgia, which collaborates in the design and testing of data 

collection processes and in the analysis of collected data. For fiscal years 

2000 through 2004, direct costs for NSRE-related data collection totaled 

approximately $1,407,000, of which the Forest Service’s contribution was 

approximately $570,000.4

Other federal agencies, under their various authorities and mandates, 

contribute approximately 59 percent of the direct costs for NSRE-related 

data collection. For example, for NSRE 2000-2001 the primary “other

3

Of the Forest Service contribution to data costs, 75 percent is funding through R&D and 25 

percent through State and Private Forestry accounts. R&D funds are from two sources: (1) 

funds appropriated directly to the Forest Service’s Southern Research Station and (2) funds 

allocated to the Southern Research Station through the Strategic Planning and Resource 

Assessment Staff in Washington, D.C., headquarters. In-kind contributions, primarily for 

salaries, amount to approximately $50,000 annually.

4

The NSRE does not have a budget line item in the Forest Service budget and is not 

mentioned in budget justification documents sent to the Congress.
Appendix VII

National Survey on Recreation and the 

Environment, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. 

Department of Agriculture

Page 52 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

agency” contributing funding was NOAA.5 For fiscal years 2000 through 

2004, NOAA funding for data collection totaled $514,700, not including the 

13.6 percent overhead assessed by the Southern Research Station.6

 NOAA 

is expected to be a major contributor to NSRE 2005-2006 as well, having 

already contributed $280,000. Other federal agencies that have supported 

the NSRE (NSRE 2000-2001) include: the National Park Service ($17,280), 

Environmental Protection Agency ($95,040), Bureau of Land Management 

($46,928), and Economic Research Service ($17,280). Support from these 

and other agencies for NSRE 2005-2006 is yet to be developed and is 

currently unknown. Different state agencies over different periods have 

also provided funding for the NSRE. For NSRE 2000-2001, this funding 

amounted to about 1 percent of the total.7

Summary Forest Service officials responsible for managing the NSRE were unable to 

indicate precisely the effect of future funding on the ability of the survey 

program to generate data of similar quality and comprehensiveness when 

compared with data from previous NSREs. This is because of uncertainty 

regarding the level of funding from Forest Service R&D as well as 

uncertainty regarding support that will be forthcoming in future years from 

other federal agency sponsors. The officials noted that all aspects of the 

NSRE are vulnerable to budget reductions, both across-the-board and more 

specifically targeted reductions, and that recreation research (and, more 

broadly, research in the social sciences) is among the areas of Forest

5

Different agency sponsors add modules of questions to the NSRE specific to their interests. 

However, the core modules of participation in activities and demographics remain the same 

and are consistent back to the 1960 survey. Other agencies support the design, testing, 

analysis and reporting of only their own modules of questions but also partially support the 

NSRE core modules of participation and demographics. NOAA’s needs for state-level data in 

support of development of its mandated coastal damage assessment capacity required a 

target of 50,000 completed interviews across recreational activities. NOAA’s contribution to 

“other federal agency funding” for NSRE 2000-2001 represented approximately 63 percent of 

this “other” 59 percent of total funding.

6

NOAA’s annual contributions in this period were as follows: 2000, $281,700; 2001, $168,200; 

2002, $0; 2003, $43,200; 2004, $21,600.

7

States use the NSRE for their statewide comprehensive outdoor recreation plans. For 

NSRE 2000-2001, four states contributed relatively small amounts of funding to the NSRE: 

California ($2,729), Missouri ($880), Tennessee ($4,700), and Vermont ($4,401).
Appendix VII

National Survey on Recreation and the 

Environment, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. 

Department of Agriculture

Page 53 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Service R&D to be cut first.8 Reductions in Forest Service funding for 

recreation research have already occurred in fiscal year 2005, and in fiscal 

year 2006 there are proposed cuts to recreation research funding that could 

further erode the Forest Service’s ability to contribute toward funding of 

the NSRE.9

 The outlook, according to NSRE managers in the Forest 

Service’s Southern Research Station, is that the NSRE will increasingly 

depend on external, or “other agency,” funding sources.

Table 6: Forest Service Direct Funding for the NSRE, Fiscal Years 2000-2004 and 

Projected for Fiscal Years 2005 and 2006a

Source: USDA.

Notes: Funding for fiscal years 2005 and 2006 are to be determined.

a

The unit of the Southern Research Station that manages the NSRE receives notification of its budget 

from the Southern Research Station. None of this funding is specifically designated for funding the 

NSRE. In fact, very few individual studies are identified and earmarked for specific funding. 

b

Estimated.

8

Across-the-board reductions would include government wide funding cuts and reductions 

to a parent agency’s overall budget. NSRE officials explained that there is not as strong a 

constituency for recreation and social science research as there is, for example, for Forest 

Inventory and Analysis research, which has strong industry backing.

9

A 5-year plan of research, called a Research Work Unit Description, includes mention of the 

NSRE as one of the Southern Research Station unit’s primary studies for fiscal years 2005 

and 2006, without, however, specifying the amount of support for the survey.

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006b

$175,000 $75,000 $187,274 $33,800 $90,390 $90,000 $60,000
Appendix VII

National Survey on Recreation and the 

Environment, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. 

Department of Agriculture

Page 54 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Figure 6: National Survey on Recreation and the Environment Funding for 

Fiscal Years 2000-2005 and Proposed Fiscal Year 2006

Notes: Funding levels were adjusted for inflation using a chained GDP price index based on 

information from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis and the 

Congressional Budget Office.

The precise amounts of fiscal year 2005 and 2006 funding for the NSRE have yet to be determined 

because of uncertainty regarding the Forest Service’s contributions as well as contributions from other 

agencies.

Apart from the potential effects of future funding levels, Forest Service 

NSRE managers indicated that there were no planned changes in the 

recreation research program that would affect the ability of the NSRE to 

produce data of similar comprehensiveness and quality compared with that 

used to support ecological indicators in the first Heinz Center report 

published in 2002. In fact, they said, the NSRE, adequately funded, has the 

ability to produce a considerably more comprehensive and robust set of 

data in support of the Heinz Center indicator “outdoor recreation,” across 

all of the ecosystems that the center reported on, including coasts and 

oceans, farmlands, forests, fresh waters, grasslands and shrublands, and 

Proposed fiscal year 2006 funding

Fiscal year

Funding level (in thousands)

Source: USDA.

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

Inflation adjusted (FY ’00 dollars)

Program funds

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 
Appendix VII

National Survey on Recreation and the 

Environment, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. 

Department of Agriculture

Page 55 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

urban and suburban areas. The primary problem is financing sufficient 

numbers of observations for each of the six categories of ecosystems to 

permit the reporting of valid and reliable estimates nationally and 

regionally. In fiscal year 2003, NSRE staff conducted a pilot test that 

included in the NSRE questions that would differentiate recreation 

participation across all of the Heinz ecosystem categories. The pilot 

produced promising results, officials said, but with small sample sizes, they 

were not able to estimate confidence levels. They added that they are 

committed to meeting the outdoor recreation-related data needs of the 

Heinz Center and others as much as possible within the constraints of 

available funding. 

Agency Perspectives 

on Potential Impacts of 

Funding Levels and 

Program Changes

NSRE program management officials provided the following information 

on funding levels and program priorities relative to NSRE’s ability to 

continue providing environmental and ecological data comparable with 

past years:

• The NSRE in the future will remain much the same, except that there are 

likely to be fewer interviews completed for the full array of recreational 

activities covered, and there is likely to be an increased emphasis on 

boating and related activities because of the participation of the U.S. 

Coast Guard in the survey to satisfy a need for boating safety data. The 

core modules of the NSRE, i.e., activity participation and demographics, 

will change little, however. These modules contain questions relating to 

a variety of outdoor recreational activities, the frequency of 

participation, the age and ethnicity of participants, the geographic 

location of participants, etc. Because there will be fewer observations, it 

is anticipated that the data will be somewhat less geographically 

resolute. Funding sponsors are still developing, however, meaning that 

ultimately a number of observations similar to NSRE 2000-2001 may be 

collected in NSRE 2005-2006. The pattern of funding portrayed in figure 

6, in particular the pattern of funding between fiscal years 2000 and 

2004, represents a fairly typical cycle of funding for the NSRE.10 The 

bulk of the NSRE surveying was completed in fiscal years 2000 through 

2002, and data were compiled, analyzed and published in fiscal years 

10Funds for the NSRE must be committed before data collection begins. While some data 

were still being collected in 2003, some of the funding for this activity had already been 

committed in 2002. As noted previously, the NSRE is not a line item funded project, and 

typically there is not a steady stream of funding for the survey.
Appendix VII

National Survey on Recreation and the 

Environment, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. 

Department of Agriculture

Page 56 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

2003 and 2004. Whether this cyclical pattern will hold in coming years, 

however, is uncertain, given the pattern of spending reductions across 

the federal government in many program areas.

• It is unclear how Forest Service management will prioritize the NSRE. 

Recreation is one of six goals for the Forest Service for fiscal years 2004 

through 2008.11 In addition, broad-scale assessments of national and 

regional demand for recreation constitute one of the primary targets 

within R&D goal No. 3. Recreation research is also identified as one of 

seven strategic program areas for Forest Service R&D in the agency’s 

projected R&D strategic plan.12 Thus, it would seem that the NSRE 

would be a relatively high priority for the agency, even though program 

funding for recreation research in fiscal years 2005 and 2006 would 

suggest otherwise.

• Operation of the NSRE program for fiscal year 2005 will depend 

primarily on non-Forest Service funding. The same will be true for fiscal 

year 2006 and likely for the foreseeable future. To the degree that 

outside sponsorship continues, the NSRE data collection, analysis, and 

reporting will continue. Work is scheduled as funding is made available. 

The Forest Service portion of NSRE 2005-2006 data collection has not 

yet begun; and, thus, the agency has not yet obligated funds to NSRE 

direct data costs.13

• Rising annual salary obligations for the Southern Research unit are 

steadily eroding discretionary funding that would normally be obligated 

11The six Forest Service goals are: (1) reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfire, (2) reduce the 

impacts from invasive species, (3) provide outdoor recreation opportunities, (4) help meet 

energy resource needs, (5) improve watershed conditions, and (6) other mission related 

work.

12The strategic plan for Forest Service R&D is slated for implementation in fiscal year 2007. 

Recreation is one of seven strategic program areas. Developing, interpreting and reporting 

data from the NSRE would be important to meeting “Creditability through Accounting” 

targets within the plan. The other six Forest Service R&D goals are: (1) wildlife fire R&D, (2) 

invasive species R&D, (3) fish and wildlife R&D, (4) air and water R&D, (5) resource 

management R&D, and (6) resource data and analysis R&D.

13The full cycle of NSRE 2005-2006 to generate 40,000 responses could perhaps last into 

winter/spring 2007. Additional content will be added to the survey as funding becomes 

available. In addition, as new sponsors are identified with special needs, their question 

modules will be designed and included to meet those needs. The exact timing and objectives 

of such specially sponsored modules are yet to be determined.
Appendix VII

National Survey on Recreation and the 

Environment, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. 

Department of Agriculture

Page 57 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

to the NSRE, and thus affect the unit’s ability to continue personnel, 

administrative, design analysis, and other “in-kind” contributions to the 

NSRE. Other factors also impact this ability, including increased costs of 

acquiring data (up 25 percent) because of more costly procedures 

required by OMB, rising Forest Service overhead costs, rising costs of 

official travel, and increased costs of almost all other input factors for 

operation of the NSRE. The areas particularly affected by these cost 

increases are survey design and testing, data collection, and data 

analysis. “In-kind” financing is also essential to the development and 

reporting of national and regional recreation statistics, since no other 

agency would be doing such reporting.
Page 58 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Appendix VIII

Bureau of Economic Analysis, Economics and 

Statistics Administration, Department of 

Commerce ApendxiVI

Background The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) is part of the Economics and 

Statistics Administration (ESA) in the U.S. Department of Commerce. 

BEA’s mission is to promote understanding of the U.S. economy by 

providing timely, relevant, and accurate economic accounts data in an 

objective and cost-effective manner.1

 To do this, BEA collects source data, 

conducts research and analysis, develops and implements estimation 

methodologies, and publishes statistics.

BEA prepares economic accounts that present essential information on 

such key issues as economic growth, regional economic development, 

interindustry relationships, and the nation’s position in the world economy. 

Among these economic accounts and other statistics, BEA produces the 

gross domestic product (GDP) estimate, the market value of goods and 

services produced by labor and property in the United States.2

 It also 

produces the balance of payments account, which records transactions 

between U.S. residents and foreign residents during given periods. These 

payments include transactions in goods, services, income, assets, and 

liabilities. 

In addition, BEA produces state personal income estimates as well as 

input-output accounts that show the relationships between all of the 

industries in the economy and all of the commodities that these industries 

produce and use. Government and business decision makers, researchers, 

and the general public use BEA’s information to follow and understand the 

performance of diverse sectors of the nation’s economy. For example, the 

Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and Congress use the GDP 

estimates and national accounts to prepare budget estimates and 

projections; and the Federal Reserve uses them to set interest and 

exchange rates. Federal agencies employ BEA’s regional income and 

product account estimates in formulas used to distribute more than $190 

billion in program funds to states, tribes, and localities. This includes 

payments for Development Block Grants, Medicaid, Foster Care, Child 

1

Economic accounts record flows in the national economy. An “account” is a numerical 

record of all flows (outputs, costs, income, etc.) during a given period. Accounts can be 

international, national, regional, local, industry, financial, etc., depending on the economic 

activity they measure.

2

Gross domestic product replaced gross national product as the primary measure of U.S. 

production in 1991.
Appendix VIII

Bureau of Economic Analysis, Economics and 

Statistics Administration, Department of 

Commerce

Page 59 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Care and Adoption Assistance, Vocational Education, and a number of 

other programs.

BEA state personal income estimates are important for a variety of 

indicators because they have been made over many years and are prepared 

quarterly. Since 1969, BEA has developed annual personal income 

estimates,3

 for all metropolitan areas, and for all counties and county 

equivalents (e.g., parishes in Louisiana and boroughs in Alaska).4

 BEA’s 

annual estimates of personal income for local areas provide the most 

detailed economic pictures of local areas that are available because they 

are the only data sets covering the entire country over an extended period, 

allowing for both short- and long-term trend analyses. State and local 

governments use these data to plan spending, make revenue estimates, and 

track their economies; businesses use them to measure business 

development and regional growth. BEA’s per-capita personal income 

estimates serve as a measure of the economic well-being of the residents of 

an area.

Summary Based on funding proposed in the President’s fiscal year 2006 budget, BEA 

officials expect that total agency funding levels for fiscal year 2006 will 

increase by more than 10 percent, following a 7 percent rise in fiscal year 

2005. These increases allow the BEA to continue to generate data of similar 

or superior quality and comprehensiveness when compared with data from 

previous years. In general, the proposed fiscal year 2006 budget increase is 

to be devoted to initiatives to improve the accuracy and timeliness of BEA’s 

statistics.

3

The BEA defines personal income as income received by persons from all sources. 

Estimates are derived by including income received from participation in production as well 

as from government and business transfer payments. Personal income is the sum of 

compensation of employees (received), supplements to wages and salaries, proprietors’ 

income with inventory valuation adjustment and capital consumption adjustment (CCAdj), 

rental income of persons (with CCAdj), personal income receipts on assets, and personal 

current transfer receipts, less contributions for government social insurance.

4

BEA prepares estimates for 3,111 counties and county equivalents, as well as for 361 

metropolitan areas, 575 micropolitan areas (urban clusters with 10,000 to 50,000 

inhabitants), and 179 BEA economic areas (centers of economic activity defined by 

commuter patterns and information focus).
Appendix VIII

Bureau of Economic Analysis, Economics and 

Statistics Administration, Department of 

Commerce

Page 60 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Figure 7: Bureau of Economic Analysis Budget for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 and 

Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006

Note: Funding levels were adjusted for inflation using a chained GDP price index based on information 

from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Congressional Budget 

Office.

BEA’s Regional Economics Directorate is the source for the data series on 

county personal income, which was used by the Heinz Center in its 2002 

report, and this directorate’s budget is projected to increase 17 percent in 

fiscal year 2006. This increase will be used to improve regional economic 

accounts by enhancing data accuracy, timeliness, cost-effectiveness, and 

accessibility through the Internet and other electronic media. For example, 

three key regional statistics will be released on accelerated schedules: 

gross state product (12 months sooner), metropolitan personal income (8 

months sooner), and county personal income (7 months sooner, i.e., 

appearing 10 months after the reference year instead of the current 17 

months).

Proposed fiscal year 2006 funding

Fiscal year

Funding level (in millions)

Source: BEA.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Inflation adjusted (FY ’00 dollars)

Appropriated funds

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 
Appendix VIII

Bureau of Economic Analysis, Economics and 

Statistics Administration, Department of 

Commerce

Page 61 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

The 2002 Heinz Center report, The State of the Nation’s Ecosystems, relied 

on BEA data to support one of its ecological indicators: the monetary value 

of agricultural production. The monetary value of agricultural production 

indicator used BEA county-level estimates of cash receipts from farm 

marketings to derive agricultural sales per square mile.5

 The county-level 

cash receipts from farm marketings were divided by the number of square 

miles in a county to calculate agricultural sales per square mile.

BEA officials reported that planned activities and goals for the Regional 

Economics Directorate will have a positive effect on the agency’s ability to 

produce data in the coming years comparable with or superior to data 

produced in previous years. For example, officials expect that the BEA 

data that the Heinz Center relied on to support indicators in its 2002 report 

will be available in an improved form for the center’s planned 2007 followon report.

Agency Perspectives 

on Potential Impacts of 

Funding Levels and 

Program Changes

BEA officials provided the following information on funding levels and 

program priorities relative to BEA’s ability to continue providing 

environmental and ecological data comparable with past years:

• The BEA regional economic accounts activity is expected to increase 

from 100 to 116 staff persons with the President’s proposed fiscal year 

2006 budget request for the Regional Economics Directorate. This 20 

percent funding increase (approximately $2.5 million) constitutes 

recognition of the labor-intensive nature of data analysis and is intended 

to generate more timely data for several programs, including the state 

and county personal income data relied on by the Heinz Center. With 

additional staff and computer enhancements, BEA economists expect to 

be able to accelerate their release of regional statistics. As a continuing 

effort, BEA is also developing new regional statistics and extended 

timeline data, as well as conducting research to develop substate gross 

product data and alternative ways to measure income.

5

For 16 states that are major agricultural producers, state offices affiliated with the USDA’s 

National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) prepare annual county estimates of farm 

cash receipts. For other states, state-level cash receipts estimates based on Economic 

Research Service data are allocated to counties in proportion to the Census of Agriculture 

data in census years. For noncensus years, BEA extrapolates the Census of Agriculture data 

from annual production data for commodities.
Appendix VIII

Bureau of Economic Analysis, Economics and 

Statistics Administration, Department of 

Commerce

Page 62 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

• By the time the next Heinz Center report is issued in 2007, BEA should 

be in a position to provide some of the most complete data in its history 

and in a timelier manner. Newly designed information systems will 

improve response times by coordinating related data more 

comprehensively and more quickly. Response times will also be 

shortened by more rapid computation and reporting methods. Improved 

reporting on long-term trends will be possible because BEA will have 

data for total and per-capita income for counties and their equivalents 

extending back to 1969.

• BEA has the flexibility, if need be, to find alternative source data needed 

to prepare and publish state and county personal income calculations. 

For example, should NASS, its current data source, discontinue 

producing the necessary primary data, BEA could find alternate means 

to continue making these estimates that are a key part of its 

responsibilities. One example of an alternative technique for 

determining income is that used by BEA when the state of Nebraska 

ceased publication of annual cash receipts because of state budget cuts. 

In this case, BEA estimates Nebraska’s cash receipts using Census of 

Agriculture data for the census years, although it still lacks year-to-year 

changes. For the intervening noncensus years, BEA makes 

interpolations with annual agricultural production data from NASS, 

where appropriate.
Page 63 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Appendix IX

National Environmental Satellite, Data and 

Information Service, NOAA, Department of 

Commerce ApendxiIX

Background The mission of the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information 

Service (NESDIS) is to provide timely information and access to global 

environmental data from satellites and other sources to promote, protect, 

and enhance the nation’s economy, security, environment, and quality of 

life. NESDIS was formed in 1982 by combining two pre-existing NOAA 

components, the Environmental Data Service (EDS) and the National 

Environmental Satellite Service (NESS). It collects data and statistics 

under various legislative authorities.1

 The operation of environmental 

satellites goes back to the April 1960 launch of the first weather satellite.2

Over the years, the capabilities of satellites have steadily improved, and 

new environmental applications have been added to the array of 

space-based sensors.

Summary NOAA and NESDIS officials indicated that actual NESDIS funding for fiscal 

year 2005 and funding proposed in the President’s budget request for fiscal 

year 2006 (as shown in fig. 8), are expected to result in the continuation of 

data collection and analysis across all programs. The officials indicated in 

particular that data used in the 2002 Heinz Center report, The State of the 

1

Some of the statutes giving NESDIS data collection, analysis, and dissemination authority 

include: (1) 15 U.S.C. § 313, which authorizes meteorological forecasting and warning 

responsibilities, as well as monitoring and recording climatic conditions; (2) the 

Supplemental Appropriation Act, 1962, Pub. L. No. 87-332; 75 Stat. 733, 734 (1961), which 

authorizes NOAA to establish and operate a system for the continuous observation of 

worldwide meteorological conditions from space satellites and for the reporting and 

processing of the data obtained for use in weather forecasting; (3) the Federal Records Act 

of 1950, 44 U.S.C. §§ 3101-3107, which is the authority for retention of data by NESDIS; (4) 

33 U.S.C. § 883d, giving the Secretary of Commerce authority to conduct investigations and 

research in the geophysical sciences (including oceanography) in order to increase 

engineering and scientific knowledge; and (5) the Land Remote Sensing Policy Act of 1992, 

15 U.S.C. § 5621, which authorizes the Secretary of Commerce to issue licenses for private 

(commercial) remote-sensing satellite space systems.

2

Round-the-clock operation of all NESDIS satellites is the responsibility of the Office of 

Satellite Operations (OSO), which oversees a constellation of Geostationary Operational 

Environmental Satellites (GOES), Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellites (POES), and 

satellites within the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP). The Office of 

Satellite Data Processing and Distribution (OSDPD) handles operational data processing 

and distribution. The Office of Research Applications (ORA) oversees development of 

algorithms and new products based on the satellite data streams. The POES carries five 

sensors, one of which, the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), was 

integral to the collection of data used in the 2002 Heinz Center report, The State of the 

Nation’s Ecosystems.
Appendix IX

National Environmental Satellite, Data and 

Information Service, NOAA, Department of 

Commerce

Page 64 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Nation’s Ecosystems, are expected to be available at similar or improved 

quality and comprehensiveness when compared with data from prior years.

Figure 8: National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service Budget for 

Fiscal Years 2000-2005 and Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006

Note: Funding levels were adjusted for inflation using a chained GDP price index based on information 

from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Congressional Budget 

Office.

Agency officials told us that NESDIS has no planned program changes that 

would adversely affect its ability to generate data that can be compared 

with data generated in prior years. Furthermore, they told us that NESDIS 

data will be available in an improved form for the expected 2007 update of 

the Heinz Center’s The State of the Nation’s Ecosystems report.

Proposed fiscal year 2006 funding

Fiscal year

Funding level (in millions)

Source: NOAA.

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1,000

Inflation adjusted (FY ’00 dollars)

Appropriated funds

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 
Appendix IX

National Environmental Satellite, Data and 

Information Service, NOAA, Department of 

Commerce

Page 65 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Agency Perspectives 

on Potential Impacts of 

Funding Levels and 

Program Changes

NOAA program officials provided the following information on funding 

levels and program priorities relative to the NESDIS program’s ability to 

continue providing environmental and ecological data comparable with 

past years:

• NESDIS data collection and statistics programs have been well 

supported through the federal budget process over the past 5 fiscal 

years. Based on this history, it does not appear that any programs are 

particularly vulnerable to budget reductions. In addition, no budget 

reductions are planned or requested. Specific funding amounts for the 

various NESDIS programs for fiscal years 2000 through 2005, as well as 

proposed funding for fiscal year 2006, are portrayed in table 7 (aggregate 

totals are presented in fig. 8):

Table 7: NESDIS Funding Levels for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 and Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006

Soruce: NOAA.

a

Estimate based on President’s proposed budget.

b

Representing costs associated with the operation of existing satellites and their data processing and 

distribution functions.

c

Representing costs of operating data centers (e.g., National Climatic Data Center, National 

Geophysical Data Center, and National Oceanographic Data Center) and related services.

Dollars in thousands

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006a

Operations, research and facilities

Environmental satellite observingb $56,903 $60,167 $77,891 $85,612 $82,945 $101,460 $100,278

Data centers and information servicesc 52,363 64,792 64,417 64,032 68,725 74,600 53,704

Subtotal $109,266 $124,959 $142,308 $149,644 $151,670 $176,060 $153,982

Procurement, acquisition and 

construction

Satellites $455,856 $500,032 $558,125 $555,739 $661,600 $705,911 $792,813

Nonsatellite 0 14,967 3,542 497 13,839 25,477 17,091

Subtotal $455,856 $514,999 $561,667 $556,236 $678,439 $731,388 $809,904

Total $565,122 $639,958 $703,975 $705,880 $830,109 $907,448 $963,886
Appendix IX

National Environmental Satellite, Data and 

Information Service, NOAA, Department of 

Commerce

Page 66 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

• The funding totals are from all sources, including standard 

appropriations, other NOAA programs, other federal agencies, and 

nonfederal sources.3

 The two most substantial funding increases from 

fiscal year 2004 through 2005 include the following:

• For “Environmental Satellite Observing,” an $18.5 million increase is 

planned. This total includes $7.4 million for sustaining capacity in 

existing operations within the Office of Satellite Operations, Office of 

Satellite Data Processing and Distribution, and the Office of 

Research Applications; $0.7 million for “Coral Reef Monitoring” 

(previously appropriated in the National Ocean Service budget); and 

$10.4 million for services requested by congressional direction or 

planned program changes. These services or planned program 

changes include operations, maintenance, and rent of a new satellite 

command and control facility; a partnership with the National 

Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for 

research-to-operations projects; and funding for two new NESDIS 

responsibilities, the Office of Space Commercialization, and the 

Secretariat of the Interagency Global Positioning System Executive 

Board.

• For the multiyear acquisition for new and replacement satellites, a 

$44.3 million increase is planned. Spending for the new satellite 

series increases by $82.5 million, while spending for replacement 

satellites of the present series decreases by $38.2 million. The 

comparable fiscal year 2005 to 2006 increase is $86.9 million. Of this 

amount, $11 million is for a Landsat replacement—a new NESDIS 

responsibility added in fiscal year 2006. The remaining $75.9 million 

is the net increase for polar and geostationary satellite acquisitions.

• Other NOAA programs and federal agencies provide funds to NESDIS as 

a result of at least two general types of determinations:

3

The primary source of nonfederal funds is from sales of data sets and products. This source 

has been declining in recent years as more customers access data from Internet sources 

rather than purchasing data on media such as publications, compact discs, and magnetic 

tapes. The proportions of receipts have been roughly consistent over recent years with 

about 78 percent from commercial firms, 12 percent from foreign organizations, and 5 

percent each from academic institutions and the general public. NESDIS data centers 

provide products at prices set to recover the cost of reproduction and distribution only, and 

the costs recovered do not pay for data collection or analysis activities.
Appendix IX

National Environmental Satellite, Data and 

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• A NOAA program may require some form of specialized data 

management service and decide that NESDIS data centers are the 

most effective organization to implement the service on the 

program’s behalf. Such NOAA programs often extend funding over 

several years, terminating when the programs no longer need the 

service. One example is the NOAA Coral Reef Information System 

(CoRIS)—which is a “Web portal” to coral reef information resources 

that the National Oceanographic Data Center (one of four NESDIS 

data centers) operates and maintains on behalf of multiple NOAA 

program activities.

• Competitive research proposals emerge where the needs of a 

research topic are a good match with a NESDIS data center’s 

capabilities and, through a competitive process, the agency or 

program sponsoring the research selects a NESDIS data center from 

among the various proposals they receive from service providers. 

These service arrangements tend to be short-lived, providing only 1 

or 2 years of funding to work on a specific topic. 

• Although NESDIS does not anticipate any funding reductions for its data 

collection and analysis activities across its data centers, in the event of 

NESDIS funding reductions, the following are some factors that would 

apply in the process of deciding how NESDIS components would be 

affected and what priorities would apply:

• Environmental satellite observing. The first priority would be to 

sustain current operational satellite services used for protecting life 

and property. This includes such products as those delivered to the 

National Weather Service for weather forecasts and warnings, 

volcanic ash plume images for warnings to air traffic, and wildfire 

imagery to support firefighting operations. The impact on data 

collection pertinent to the Heinz Report would likely be minimal. For 

example, much of the data collection and processing to create sea 

surface temperature information requires the Advanced Very High 

Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) data set, a high-priority data set
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 likely to be funded in order to provide service to other customers, 

 such as the National Weather Service.4

• Data centers and information services. Any impact would not affect 

data collection activities, as the data centers and information 

services section of the budget is not used to fund such activities. The 

NESDIS data centers gather data collected by other programs, 

preserve it for users, compile new products, and provide public 

access to the data and products. Funding for the centers and services 

is used for archiving, accessing, and assessing data. Failing to fund 

and preserve new observations (reducing the archive activity) would 

harm the future capability to document changes in the environment. 

Similarly, reducing the assessment activity would halt production of 

some products that assist users in interpreting the past and present 

state of the environment. Finally, reducing the access budget would 

pose more difficulty to users in obtaining information from the 

archives and the assessment products. One priority consideration 

would be to sustain the archiving activity because it would not be 

possible to go back in time and replace missing observations. Unless 

observations are archived on a regular basis, it is likely that they will 

be lost forever. The access and assessment capabilities, on the other 

hand, could be rebuilt later as long as the observations have been 

archived.

• Procurement, Acquisition and Construction (PAC). This section of 

the budget deals with building future capability, so any potential 

reductions would have impacts on future data collection activities. 

Funding reductions that reduce or eliminate the acquisition or 

construction of future satellites—for example, the National 

Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System—would 

not be felt immediately; however, there would be a significant impact 

on future data and information services if those satellites cannot be 

4

AVHRR data is used by multiple federal agencies, nonfederal entities, and commercial firms 

for a variety of products related to measurements of the atmosphere, ocean, and land. 

Typical applications include day and night cloud mapping, snow and ice detection, 

land-water boundaries, sea surface temperature, and the vegetative index. For example, the 

cloud imagery seen on many local television weather reports often comes from AVHRR data. 

Department of Defense weather centers also regularly use AVHRR data to supplement their 

Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) sources. AVHRR is a radiation-detection 

imager used for remotely determining cloud cover and the surface temperature (the surface 

of the Earth, the upper surfaces of clouds, and the surface of a body of water).
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launched on schedule with the planned suite of sensors and 

capabilities.

• NESDIS will be supportive of sustaining and improving the ability of its 

data programs to provide data and information at a level and quality of 

previous years, including data that were used to support indicators in 

the 2002 Heinz Center report. NESDIS contributes to the outcomes and 

strategies of all of the NOAA goals and programs by providing long-term 

archive and access services for environmental observations and 

information. The NESDIS strategic plan states a goal of building and 

advancing the capabilities of an ecological component of the NOAA 

global environmental observing system to monitor, assess, and predict 

national and regional ecosystem health, as well as to gather information 

consistent with established social and economic indicators.

• Officials expect capability improvements to NESDIS satellites and to its 

data centers over time that portend significant improvements to all 

types of environmental observations in the future:

• National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System 

(NPOESS) and geostationary operational environmental satellites 

will have improved observational capabilities, including higher 

resolution and more accurate sea surface temperature and ocean 

color products.

• Integration of observing systems—for example, the Integrated Ocean 

Observing System and the Global Earth Observing System—are being 

emphasized at the national and international levels.5

• New capabilities in support of agriculture and forestry, such as 

drought monitoring, fire and fire risk, and monitoring of vegetation 

condition and health will be developed and improved.

5

The Integrated Ocean Observing System is being designed to satisfy user needs for coastal 

and ocean data, and will facilitate the study of short- and long-term ocean resource issues. 

The system is envisioned as a coordinated national and international network of 

observations, data management and communications, and data analysis and modeling that 

systematically acquires and disseminates data and information on past, present, and future 

states of the oceans and coasts, including the Great Lakes. The Global Earth Observing 

Systems are intended to facilitate the sharing and applied usage of global, regional, and local 

data from satellites, ocean buoys, weather stations, and other surface and airborne 

Earth-observing instruments. The goal is to provide environmental information that is 

integrated into new data products, benefiting societies and economies worldwide.
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• Through the application of information technology and by providing 

more services over the Internet, more data users are being served 

despite a declining federal workforce and during a period when the 

NESDIS budget for data and information services has grown at less than 

the rate of inflation.

• Following are anticipated changes to the programs that were used in 

support of ecological indicators, in particular, those used in the 2002 

Heinz Center report:

• With respect to topography and bathymetry products, mapping 

programs of various U.S. agencies and others are continually 

improving the resolution and accuracy of coverage, and this trend is 

expected to continue.

• With respect to salinity data, the emergence of a national effort to 

implement an Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) will help to 

increase the observing capability for such critical parameters at a 

national level.

• With respect to sea surface temperature, two developments are 

expected to significantly improve the capability to provide this data. 

The first is the planned increase in capabilities of the next-generation 

satellites (NPOESS) that will replace existing ones (POES) and the 

AVHRR used to make measurements.6

 The “threshold” specification 

for sea surface temperature calls for one-kilometer resolution 

globally with 0.5 degree centigrade uncertainty. That alone is better 

resolution than now achieved by AVHRR. But the “objective” 

specification, which may likely be achievable, is 250-meter resolution 

with only 0.1 degree centigrade uncertainty. A second development is 

the type of research now under way to produce sea surface 

temperatures by blending observations from multiple sources, rather 

than relying on a single satellite system. The present research is 

6

When launched in 2010, the NPOESS will carry a different sensor suite with improved 

capabilities compared with the AVHRR. Specifically, the next generation of visible and 

infrared radiometers (that will replace the current AVHRR) will have a wavelength range for 

both visible and near-infrared data that has been narrowed to reduce atmospheric 

contamination of the data compared with the present AVHRR, which may impact the 

Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) values used to derive the Plant Growth 

Index included in the Heinz Center Report. Research is ongoing within NOAA, supported 

with funds provided by the NPOESS Integrated Program Office, to assess the impact of 

these future instrument changes.
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being done under the GODAE High-Resolution Sea Surface 

Temperature Pilot Project. One particularly attractive aspect of that 

research is that blending of multiple measurements will allow an 

objective estimate of the uncertainty in the resulting values, which 

will be useful when using the values as input to predictive models or 

assessments.

• Two factors bear on the data gap for the ecosystem extent ecological 

indicator used in the Heinz Center report, where national reporting on 

the extent of brackish coastal water was not possible:

• As noted in the Heinz Center report, many of the nearshore 

observations now being taken are collected by state and local entities 

for their own purposes and are not reported to a national or even 

regional repository.

• A major effort is currently required to adequately sample these 

waters. The coastline of the U.S. is a highly dynamic environment in 

terms of both space and time, with tidal mixing, varying river 

discharges, and coastal storms, and is estimated at about 20,000 

kilometers long. The inventory of oceanographic observing stations 

near coastal waters, however, is only about 250 stations—many of 

which are buoys located miles offshore that do not collect salinity or 

other important habitat characterization measures such as nutrient 

concentrations and dissolved oxygen. Covering 20,000 kilometers of 

coastal waters with a few hundred stations does not provide enough 

observations to address the gap raised by the Heinz Center report. 

The relative dearth of coastal observations and the failure to share 

those observations that are collected are recognized problems 

nationally. Recent national efforts toward building an Integrated 

Ocean Observing System will help address these types of gaps.
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Appendix X

National Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA, 

Department of Commerce ApendxiX

Background The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), within the National 

Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the Department of 

Commerce, is responsible for the stewardship of the nation’s living marine 

resources and their habitat through science-based conservation and 

management and the promotion of healthy ecosystems. Among its many 

responsibilities, NMFS assesses and predicts the status of fish stocks, 

ensures compliance with fisheries regulations, and works to reduce 

wasteful fishing practices. NMFS coordinates with partners to collect data 

on landings, harvest levels, catch, effort, participation, economic, 

sociocultural, and biological data on commercial and recreational fisheries 

through surveys, registration and reporting systems, and observation.1

 This 

data is the foundation of information upon which fishery policy and 

management decisions are made.

NMFS carries out various activities pursuant to legislative mandates and 

other requirements for managing programs that rely on environmental data 

or necessitate monitoring, reporting, and the collection of such data. Those 

activities include the following:

• The Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 (MMPA) vests responsibility 

for the protection and monitoring of all cetaceans and pinnipeds, except 

walrus, to NOAA.2

 All other marine mammals fall under the jurisdiction 

of the Department of the Interior. Congress found that knowledge of 

marine mammals was inadequate3

 and required stock assessment 

1

Landings are defined as the number of pounds of fish that is selected and kept during the 

sorting procedures on vessels and discharged at dockside by commercial or recreational 

fisherman; harvest levels are defined as the total number or weight of fish caught and kept 

from an area over a period of time; catch is defined as the total number (or weight) of fish 

caught and killed by fishing operations, including fish that are discarded; effort is defined as 

the amount of time and fishing power used to harvest fish; economic data include 

employment harvest revenues by species, harvesting costs, capital expenditures and other 

fishing expenses; sociocultural data includes demographic characteristics of individuals and 

communities and community public health and social problems.

2

See 16 U.S.C. § 1362(12). Cetaceans, warm-blooded mammals that spend their whole life in 

water and nourish their young with milk, include whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Pinnipeds 

are carnivorous aquatic mammals that use flippers for movement on land and in the water. 

Examples of pinnipeds are the seal and sea lion. Pinnipeds spend the majority of their lives 

swimming and eating in water and have adapted their bodies to move easily through their 

aquatic habitat.

3

16 U.S.C. § 1361(3).
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reports, based on the best scientific information available.4 Each stock 

assessment report is required to have a base set of information.5

• The Endangered Species Act (ESA) vests responsibility for some marine 

and anadromous species with the Department of Commerce.6

 Among 

other things, the ESA requires use of the best scientific and commercial 

data available for (1) decisions to list a species as threatened or 

endangered, (2) designation of critical habitat, and (3) consideration of 

petitions to list animals as endangered.7

 The Department of Commerce 

is also required to monitor the status of all species for which a petition is 

warranted and monitor the status of all species that have recovered for 

not less than 3 years.8

4

16 U.S.C. § 1386.

5

Under 16 U.S.C. § 1386, each stock assessment must include a description of the stock's 

geographic range, a minimum population estimate, current population trends, current and 

maximum net productivity rates, optimum sustainable population levels and allowable 

removal levels, and estimates of annual human-caused mortality and serious injury through 

interactions with commercial fisheries and subsistence hunters. These measures will be 

used to evaluate the progress of each fishery toward achieving its goal of zero mortality and 

serious injury.

6

Anadromous refers to fish that spawn in freshwater and live most of their lives in saltwater; 

it is often used interchangeably with diadromous, which refers to fish that migrate between 

saltwater and freshwater.

7

See 16 U.S.C. § 1533(b)(1)(A), 16 U.S.C. § 1533(b)(2), and 16 U.S.C. § 1533(b)(3), 

respectively.

8

See 16 U.S.C. § 1533(b)(3)(C)(iii) and 16 U.S.C. § 1533(g)(1) respectively.
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• Congress established the Marine Mammal Health and Stranding 

Response Program to, among other things, “correlate the health of 

marine mammals and marine mammal populations, in the wild, with 

available data on physical, chemical, and biological environmental 

parameters.”9

 The section of the MMPA that specifically addresses 

response to unusual marine mortalities directs the Secretary of 

Commerce to be able to evaluate whether an unusual mortality event 

(UME) has occurred and to develop a contingency plan for responding 

that includes identification of the types of marine mammal tissues and 

analyses necessary to assist in diagnosing causes of UME, determining 

the effects of UME on the affected population, and identifying physical, 

chemical, and biological factors that may have played a role in the 

UME.10

• In 1996, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management 

Act was reauthorized.11 Included in the reauthorization were the 

following requirements intended to improve data collection and 

information efforts within NOAA. The reauthorization required NMFS to 

develop a plan for a nationwide Fisheries Information System, and to 

develop a recommendation for the implementation of a standardized 

fishing vessel registration.12 Fisheries Information System requirements 

were developed to fix the problems of imprecise data on assessed 

stocks and extremely limited data on many exploited stocks; 

burdensome collection and data management processes requiring 

duplicate reporting by stakeholders; and inadequate economic and 

social impact analyses resulting in court challenges with dramatic staff 

9

16 U.S.C. § 1421(b)(2). The Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Act of 1992, 16 

U.S.C. §§ 1421c(c), designated NMFS as the lead agency to coordinate activities of the 

Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Program, which responds to unusual mortality 

events. Complete pathologies to investigate diseases and parasites can be performed on 

UMEs, and they provide an opportunity to collect and validate reproductive biology data, 

life history (what do the animals eat; how long do they live; how many calves do they have; 

how old are they when they first reproduce), pollution, and normal biology and physiology 

parameters. These types of sampling opportunities also provide validation and increased 

understanding and interpretation of data collected from wild populations. UMEs have also 

provided data on the incidence of human interactions including ship strikes, entanglements, 

hooks, and marine debris ingestions. These data help NMFS to make better management 

decisions about these stocks of marine mammals.

1016 U.S.C. § 1421c.

11Sustainable Fisheries Act, Pub. L. No. 104-297, 110 Stat. 3559 (1996).

1216 U.S.C. § 1881(a).
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costs and burdens on the agency. In 1998, NMFS submitted a report to 

Congress entitled Proposed Implementation of a Fishing Vessel 

Registration and Fisheries Information System, which put forth a 

strategy to coordinate regional efforts for data collection, facilitate the 

dissemination of data and statistics, and integrate vessel registration 

and fisheries information systems nationally. The Fisheries Information 

System was envisioned as a highly collaborative process with 

stakeholder involvement to include regional implementation in 

cooperation with states, fishery management councils, and marine 

fisheries commissions.13

NMFS Environmental 

and Ecological Data 

Collection Activities 

Are Diverse

Across NMFS, a diverse set of offices, divisions, and programs are charged 

with collecting environmental and ecological data with respect to fisheries 

and marine-related matters. Among the primary entities are the six regional 

Fisheries Science Centers; the Office of Science and Technology—in 

particular, its Fisheries Statistics and Economics Division (FSED) and its 

Assessment and Monitoring Division; and programs within the Office of 

Protected Resources (OPR). NMFS also supports numerous regional, state, 

and local data collection efforts and programs.

13According to NOAA officials, by 2003 the Fisheries Information System (FIS) provided a 

context for the design, development, and implementation of data collection and data 

management for fishery dependent statistics nationwide to improve the timeliness and 

accuracy of data. FIS is a data portal that identifies the existing federal and state fisheries 

information systems or databases (data collections) and provides integrated business 

solutions for effective information sharing.
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Regional Fisheries Science 

Centers

Because marine ecosystems, and the fisheries within them, differ 

regionally, the field component of the NMFS science enterprise is divided 

into six regional Fisheries Science Centers.14 These centers provide the 

scientific knowledge base on which the NMFS, in concert with its six 

regional offices, the eight regional fishery management councils, interstate 

fishery commissions, and other agencies, formulates stewardship policies 

for sustainable fisheries, protected resources, and endangered species. The 

six centers encompass 25 principal laboratories employing over 1,550 

scientific and support personnel. The scope of their work is temporally and 

spatially broad and multidisciplinary.

The science centers collaborate extensively with other federal and state 

agencies, international entities, nongovernmental organizations, academia, 

and the private sector, including the fishing industry. These partnerships 

enhance and extend NMFS’s research capabilities. Many NMFS scientists 

serve as university adjunct professors, which enhances the ability of 

agency scientists to remain on the cutting edge while expanding the 

teaching capabilities of the universities and bringing NMFS’s expertise into 

the academic community. Academic scientists also play an important role 

in the periodic review and evaluation of NMFS’s research program. 

Fisheries Statistics and 

Economics Division

As the principal source of U.S. national fishery statistics, the Fisheries 

Statistics and Economics Division (FSED) provides authoritative advice, 

coordination, and guidance on matters related to the collection, analysis, 

and dissemination of biological, economic, market, and sociological 

statistics by NMFS and state agencies. FSED is primarily concerned with 

fisheries data, including domestic recreational fisheries, domestic 

14The six Fisheries Science Centers are as follows: (1) Alaska Fisheries Science Center 

(responsible for research in the marine waters and rivers of Alaska), (2) Northwest 

Fisheries Science Center (conducts multidisciplinary research to provide fisheries 

management information and technical advice in the Pacific Northwest), (3) Southwest 

Fisheries Science Center (conducts integrated research programs in biology, mathematics, 

oceanography, economics, and computer sciences for the purpose of developing scientific 

information to support the management and allocation of Pacific coastal and high-seas 

fishery resources; also conducts Antarctic research and monitoring), (4) Northeast 

Fisheries Science Center (manages a multidisciplinary program of basic and applied 

research in New England and the Mid-Atlantic), (5) Southeast Fisheries Science Center 

(conducts multidisciplinary research in waters adjacent to the southeastern United States, 

as well as Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands); and (6) the Pacific Islands Fisheries 

Science Center (conducts multidisciplinary basic and applied research on insular and 

oceanic pelagic living resources and fisheries of the Pacific islands and central Pacific).
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commercial fisheries, and foreign commercial fisheries.15 FSED 

coordinates with other federal agencies, states, interstate commissions, 

and regional councils on the collection of data and market information, the 

publication of official fishery statistics for the United States, and the 

representation of NMFS on federal and international statistical agencies. 

FSED provides statistics to U.S. government agencies, foreign 

governments, national and international organizations, private businesses, 

and individuals interested in the management and development of U.S. 

fishery resources.

According to NOAA officials, the FSED budget is derived from various 

congressional budget lines based on the specific tasks that this division 

performs. The primary source of funding for FSED salaries and expenses 

has been the Fisheries Statistics line item, which also funds salaries and 

expenses for fisheries statistics staff in the NMFS regional offices and 

science centers. Some funds obtained in this line item are used to fund 

contractors or grantees to conduct data collection, data processing, and 

information management tasks. As an example, recent-year funding for 

FSED programs came from a number of additional budget line items, as 

follows:

• Fisheries Statistics—Economics & Social Sciences Research. This 

funding (approximately $4 million in fiscal years 2004 and 2005) is used 

to conduct economic and sociocultural surveys of commercial fisheries 

and to cover salaries and expenses of the additional professional staff 

needed to analyze these data and provide the economic and social 

assessments needed to support existing fishery management plans. It is 

also used to support economics and social-sciences research for all of 

NMFS and is distributed among headquarters offices, the regional 

offices, and the regional science centers. Only a portion of this funding 

actually covers staff and projects by FSED.

• Fisheries Statistics—National Fisheries Information System. This 

funding (approximately $2.5 million each in fiscal years 2004 and 2005) 

supports NMFS projects designed to implement the National Fisheries 

Information System. The funding is distributed according to a 

15According to NOAA information sources, FSED also (1) develops national standards, 

policies and operational guidelines for the coordinated collection and publication of fishery 

statistics; (2) coordinates regional commercial statistics surveys and market data programs; 

and (3) designs and conducts national commercial and recreational statistics surveys.
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cooperatively developed annual spending plan to fund projects in 

headquarters offices, regional offices, and regional science centers.

• Fisheries Statistics—National Standard 8. This funding 

(approximately $1 million annually) is used to support the staffing and 

data collections needed to comply with the fisheries information 

requirements laid out in National Standard 8 of the Magnuson-Stevens 

Act.16 This funding is distributed among headquarters offices, regional 

offices, and regional science centers. Only a portion of this funding 

actually covers staff and projects by FSED.

• Recreational Fishery Harvest Monitoring/Recreational Fisheries 

Information Network (RecFIN). This budget line item has been 

providing approximately $3.5 million annually since 2000 to support 

marine recreational fishery surveys. Congressional budget language 

specifies that $500,000 of this amount is to be used each year to support 

economic data collection and analyses. It also specifies that the funds 

must be split equally between the Pacific, Atlantic, and Gulf of Mexico 

coasts.

Assessment and Monitoring 

Division Science Centers

The Office of Science and Technology’s Assessment and Monitoring 

Division represents the NMFS Fisheries Science Centers at NOAA 

headquarters. The division supports at-sea resource surveys, stock 

assessments, fisheries observer programs, and cooperative research, and 

manages the Center for Independent Experts, which provides independent 

peer reviews of NMFS science through a contract with the University of 

Miami. All of these activities are vital for maintaining and enhancing the 

NMFS science enterprise. The division develops policies, procedures, and 

budget initiatives to ensure that NMFS’s science is high quality, cost 

effective, productive, and fully supported. It coordinates and prepares 

annual budget formulations and annual spending plans to improve stock 

assessments and modernize and expand observer programs.

16National Standard 8 states that “conservation and management measures shall, consistent 

with the conservation requirements of this Act (including the prevention of over fishing and 

rebuilding of over fished stocks), take into account the importance of fishery resources to 

fishing communities in order to: A) provide for the sustained participation of such 

communities, and B) to the extent practicable, minimize adverse economic impacts on such 

communities.” 16 U.S.C. § 1851(a)(8).
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Office of Protected 

Resources

The Office of Protected Resources provides oversight and guidance on the 

conservation of marine mammals, endangered species, and their habitats in 

cooperation with NMFS regions, science centers, and various partners. The 

office has four divisions: (1) Permits, Conservation, and Education Division 

(it implements policies and regulations for issuance of permits and 

authorizations under the Marine Mammal Protection Act and Endangered 

Species Act and coordinates national policy to minimize harassment of 

marine mammals), (2) Marine Mammal and Turtle Conservation Division (it 

develops policies and regulations to implement the requirements and 

provisions of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and to protect turtles 

under the Endangered Species Act), (3) Endangered Species Division (it 

develops policies and regulations to implement the provisions of the 

Endangered Species Act with the goal of protecting and recovering 

endangered and threatened marine and anadromous species and their 

habitats), and (4) Planning and Program Coordination Division (it provides 

guidance and support to the office on budget, strategic planning, personnel 

management, information technology, and education).

Regional Fisheries 

Information Systems and 

Programs

NMFS also supports a number of regional fisheries information systems 

and programs that coordinate data collections, management, and 

dissemination of data among NMFS, interstate commissions, state 

agencies, and regional councils. These programs were developed to 

provide a common framework for the monitoring and management of 

fisheries statistics needed to support both resource assessments and 

regional management strategies.17 The regional information systems and 

programs include the following:

• Atlantic Coastal Cooperative Statistics Program. This is a cooperative 

state-federal program to design, implement, and conduct marine 

fisheries statistics data collection programs and to integrate those data 

into a single management system that will meet the needs of fishery 

managers, scientists, and fishermen on the Atlantic Coast. According to 

NOAA officials, this program is currently funded annually at $3.5 million 

17According to NOAA officials, the regional programs or networks gather and audit data by 

one or more of the partners using rigorous quality-control protocols. Partners participate in 

regularly scheduled reviews of data or preliminary catch and effort statistics to identify and 

resolve possible problems. Once data have been finalized by consensus, final catch and 

effort statistics are generated and integrated into the regional information system, where 

they can be accessed by stock assessment scientists and fishery managers.
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by two line items.18 Program partners include NMFS, the U.S. Fish and 

Wildlife Service (USFWS), the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries 

Commission, and the marine fishery agencies of 15 Atlantic Coast states.

• Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Information Network. The network is a statefederal cooperative program for the collection, management, and 

dissemination of statistical data and information on fisheries in Texas, 

Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. It is funded annually at 

approximately $4.2 million by two line items.19 Participating agencies 

include NMFS, the Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission, USFWS, 

the National Park Service, the Caribbean Fishery Management Council, 

the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, and the marine fishery 

agencies of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Puerto Rico, 

Texas, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

• Pacific Recreational Fisheries Information Network. This is a statefederal cooperative program to coordinate collection, management, and 

dissemination of Pacific Coast marine recreational fishery data. The 

program has been funded annually at about $2.2 million by as many as 

three line items.20 Participating agencies include NMFS, the Pacific 

States Marine Fisheries Commission, and the state marine fishery 

management agencies of California, Oregon, and Washington.

• Pacific Fisheries Information Network. This is a state-federal 

cooperative program to coordinate collection, management, and 

dissemination of Pacific Coast marine commercial fishery data. The 

program is currently funded annually at $3 million by its own line item. 

Participating agencies include NMFS, the Pacific States Marine 

Fisheries Commission, and the state marine fishery management 

agencies of Alaska, California, Oregon, and Washington.

18The Fish Statistics—Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission line item provides $2 

million, and the “Interstate Fish Commissions—Atlantic Cooperative Management” line 

item provides an additional $1.5 million.

19The two line items that contribute to this funding are Gulf of Mexico Fisheries Information 

Network and Recreational Fishery Harvest Monitoring/Recreational Fisheries Information 

Network.

20In fiscal year 2004, funding was provided by these line items: (1) Recreational Fishery 

Harvest Monitoring/Recreational Fisheries Information Network, (2) Expand Stock 

Assessments—Improve Data Collections, and (3) the Fish Statistics—National Fisheries 

Information System.
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• Alaska Fisheries Information System. This is a cooperative program 

involving the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, the Alaska 

Department of Fish and Game, the Commercial Fisheries Entry 

Commission, the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council, and 

NMFS.21 The program is currently funded annually at $3.2 million by its 

own line item. It supports the collection, entry, transfer, analysis, and 

management of Alaska fishery information.

• Recreational Fishery Harvest Monitoring/Recreational Fisheries 

Information Network—South Carolina. This budget line usually 

provides $250,000 to 500,000 annually to support a recreational fishery 

tagging program for red drum in South Carolina.

• Alaska Groundfish Monitoring—Field Fishery Monitoring. Two 

budget lines provide approximately $2.3 million in fiscal year 2005 to 

fund monitoring programs for commercial groundfish fisheries in 

Alaska. This funding goes directly to the NMFS Alaska Fisheries Science 

Center.

Summary NOAA officials indicated that funding levels for NMFS activities in fiscal 

year 2005 and proposed for fiscal year 2006 (as shown in fig. 9) will not 

have an effect on the ability to generate data of similar quality and 

comprehensiveness when compared with data from previous years. In 

addition, priority would be given to maintaining data that was and is 

expected to be used in generating the Heinz Center indicators from the 

2002 report, The State of the Nation’s Ecosystems. However, officials 

stated that certain data efforts are vulnerable, in particular those data 

collection and statistical programs that are funded but not required by 

Congress. In addition, while most of these NMFS data collection or 

statistics programs are equally vulnerable to funding reductions, significant 

funding cuts to NMFS data and statistics programs would most likely result 

21Authorized by Congress in 1947, the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission is one of 

three interstate commissions dedicated to resolving fishery issues. Representing California, 

Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Alaska, it does not have regulatory or management 

authority; rather, it serves as a forum for discussion and works for coastwide consensus to 

state and federal authorities. Its goal is to promote and support policies and actions directed 

at the conservation, development, and management of fishery resources of mutual concern 

to member states through a coordinated regional approach to research, monitoring, and 

utilization.
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in less-timely reporting, lower levels of sampling, and less-timely 

processing and dissemination of statistics.

Figure 9: National Marine Fisheries Service Budget for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 and 

Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006

Note: Funding levels were adjusted for inflation using a chained GDP price index based on information 

from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Congressional Budget 

Office.

• Agency officials told us that NMFS will continue to promote program 

initiatives and activities that will support comprehensive data 

collections, and at least provide baseline assessments of all federally 

managed fish species. If faced with the need to prioritize data activities, 

however, the agency would: (1) maintain core fishery-independent 

resource surveys and assessment staff salaries, (2) ensure the 

continuance of dealer and vessel trip reporting programs, and (3) reduce 

sampling levels in some geographic areas with respect to biological and 

recreational fishery catch and effort data. With respect to unusual 

Proposed fiscal year 2006 funding

Fiscal year

Funding level (in millions)

Source: NOAA.

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

Inflation adjusted (FY 2004 $)

Appropriated funds

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 
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marine mortalities, priority would be to focus on investigating events in 

“hot-spot” areas based on past occurrences. Agency officials indicated 

that any such priority changes would still result in the availability of 

data at a similar or improved form for the expected 2007 update of the 

Heinz Center’s The State of the Nation’s Ecosystems report. In addition, 

improved availability of information through the Internet, such as an 

improved Fisheries Information System and regional information 

systems like the Atlantic Coastal Cooperative Statistics Program, will 

facilitate more rapid access to all of the fisheries information needed for 

ecological indicator reporting.

Agency Perspectives 

on Potential Impacts of 

Funding Levels and 

Program Changes

NOAA and NMFS program officials provided the following information on 

funding levels and program priorities related to the ability of certain NMFS 

data and statistics programs to continue providing environmental and 

ecological data comparable with past years:

• Between fiscal years 2000 and 2005, NMFS funding levels have 

consistently exceeded the agency’s requested amounts. Funding 

increased from fiscal year 2000 through 2003 with a decrease in fiscal 

year 2004. The fiscal year 2004 decrease was due to a $100 million 

Fisheries Disaster appropriation in fiscal year 2003 that was not 

appropriated in 2004, along with a decrease in the appropriated amount 

for the Pacific Salmon Recovery fund from about $130 million to $90 

million.

Fisheries Statistics and 

Economics Programs

As shown in table 8, total funding for the agency’s fisheries statistics and 

economics programs has remained relatively steady between fiscal years 

2000 and 2005, and proposed funding for fiscal year 2006 is expected to be 

at or above previous years. Overall, these programs have composed 

approximately 25 percent of the NMFS annual budget.
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Table 8: Fisheries Statistics and Economics Funding for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 and 

Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006

Source: NOAA. 

a

Fiscal year 2002 funds for the Fisheries Information System that were not made available until fiscal 

year 2003 are counted in fiscal year 2003.

• The Fisheries Statistics and Economics Division (FSED) of the 

NOAA Fisheries Headquarters Office of Science and Technology 

receives only a portion of the funds that NMFS allocates to support 

fisheries statistics and economics programs, as some funds are 

allocated directly to regional offices and science centers to support 

regional state/federal cooperative programs to coordinate the 

collection, processing, management, and dissemination of fisheries 

information. Broadly, most of the allocations for each NMFS 

Fisheries Science Center are permanent; each science center is 

provided an annual amount sufficient to cover its annual operating 

expenses, including labor costs. Some of these funds are used to 

cover full-time equivalent costs and contracts for recreational fishery 

data collections. Funding for regional commercial fishery data 

collections is directed to the respective regional offices or science 

centers, while funding for economic or sociocultural data collections 

and research is generally split between headquarters offices, the 

regional offices, and the regional science centers. FSED, however, 

has been responsible for coordination, planning, and strategic 

distribution of those funds.

• Table 9 table shows fiscal year 2000 through 2005 funding amounts, 

as well as proposed fiscal year 2006 funding, directed to the FSED 

within the headquarters Office of Science and Technology:

Dollars in thousands

Fiscal Year President’s budget request Actual enacted

2000 $23,557 $28,931

2001 28,171 33,692

2002 43,854 38,762a

2003 39,262 36,209

2004 39,482 38,791

2005 40,482 39,516

2006 44,880 TBD
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Table 9: FSED Headquarters Funding for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 and Proposed for 

Fiscal Year 2006

Source: NOAA.

a

Fiscal year 2002 funds for FIS that were not made available until fiscal year 2003 are counted in fiscal 

year 2003.

• Data and statistics programs not mandated by law would be most 

vulnerable to significant funding reductions. Given this, NMFS would 

prioritize data program activities or take the following actions if faced 

with budget reductions:

• Core fishery-independent resource surveys (which is a characteristic 

of information or activity obtained or undertaken independently to 

avoid any biases inherent in fishery-related data) and assessment 

staff salaries would have priority over other program reductions.

• Dealer reporting and vessel trip reporting programs (which are 

mandatory programs under state and federal regulations requiring 

seafood dealers who purchase fish or shellfish to obtain federal or 

state permits and requiring vessel operators to record data on fishing 

efforts, locations, and landings on a trip-by-trip basis) would have 

second priority, and would be maintained by expanding time-frame 

requirements for the reporting and processing of data.

• Programs for biological data or recreational fishery catch and effort 

data would be the third priority, and would be maintained by 

reducing sampling levels in some geographic areas or for certain time 

periods or by reducing sample sizes and maintaining coverage of all 

geographic areas and time periods.

• Funding cuts would most likely result in less-timely reporting for 

commercial fishery monitoring programs, lower levels of sampling for 

Fiscal year Actual enacted

2000 $10,044,700

2001 12,169,900

2002 15,342,200

2003 12,711,500a

2004 15,542,875

2005 17,232,647

2006 To be determined
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commercial and recreational fishery survey programs, and less-timely 

processing and dissemination of commercial and recreational fishery 

statistics. Priority would be given to maintaining complete coverage of 

the respective fisheries for the collection of the minimum set of data 

elements needed to support production of the fishery statistics used for 

the Heinz Center report indicators. Statistics should continue to be 

representative, but they would likely be less precise and less readily 

available. Any change of sampling would be done in cooperation with 

respective interstate commissions and state agency partners.

Office of Protected 

Resources

• The Office of Protected Resources data collection and statistics 

programs, including those providing data on UMEs, are vulnerable to 

budget reductions. Funding for such programs has been relatively stable 

over the past 3 years, between fiscal years 2002 and 2004.

• Table 10 shows fiscal year 2000 through 2005 funding amounts, as 

well as proposed fiscal year 2006 funding, directed to the Office of 

Protected Resources:

Table 10: Office of Protected Resources Funding for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 and 

Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006

Source: NOAA.

Dollars in thousands

Fiscal year Actual enacted

2000 $90,173

2001 143,600

2002 142,448

2003 144,701

2004 145,118

2005 175,530

2006 To be determined
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• Between fiscal years 2002 and 2004, an increasing amount of program 

funds (approximately $9.5 million between fiscal years 2003 and 

2004) were expended as earmarks that shifted resources away from 

base protected species activities.22 At the same time, there were 

decreases in base funding for general marine mammal surveys and 

assessments in fiscal year 2004. The limited amount of discretionary 

funds available severely limits the program’s ability to respond to 

high-priority, timely research needs and to continue comprehensive 

long-term monitoring and research needs. This was evident in fiscal 

year 2004 when Congress significantly decreased funding for base 

marine mammals activities and those activities targeted at “other 

species.”

• In cooperation with agency partners, NMFS would reduce sample sizes 

before reducing sampling coverage areas. Unusual marine mortalities 

would prioritize its data collection efforts by focusing on and 

investigating events in “hot-spot” areas based on past occurrences.

Regional, State, and 

Industry Fisheries Activities

• Between fiscal years 2000 and 2004, the fishing industry provided 

approximately $13 million annually to support data collections by 

observers in three major fisheries across the nation.23 Nearly all of this 

funding is provided by fishermen in the North Pacific Groundfish 

Observer Program, designed to collect and disseminate information 

essential for the management of sustainable fisheries in the Gulf of 

Alaska and eastern Bering Sea. This program is administered with 

federal funding, but the observer services (including observer 

compensation, travel, and insurance) are paid for by the fishing vessels. 

22The earmarks directed funds toward efforts such as right whales, Hawaiian sea turtles, 

Puget Sound orca whales, and Stellar sea lions, and to specific entities, including the North 

Pacific Universities Marine Mammal Consortium, the Alaska Sea Life Center and Charleston 

Health and Risk Assessment.

23Observers are fishery biologists deployed onboard commercial fishing vessels to collect 

data and information on fishery catch and bycatch (i.e., the incidental capture of unintended 

fish species and protected species). This includes data on fishing practices, vessel and gear 

characteristics, fishing locations and times, environmental conditions on the fishing 

grounds, compliance with fishing regulations, and, for some fisheries, socioeconomic data. 

Observers also collect biological samples and may assist in fish tagging and tag recovery, or 

special data collections for stock assessment programs. The level of required observer 

coverage is based on the size of the vessel, with the largest vessels paying for 100 percent 

observer coverage. 
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The other two fisheries also provide funding to place observers on 

board their vessels: (1) the At-Sea Hake fishery ($350,000) and (2) the 

Northeast Closed Area Scallop Fishery ($490,000). The At-Sea Hake 

observer program was a voluntary program until 2004, when mandatory 

coverage became required. The Northeast Closed Area Scallop observer 

program requires the industry to pay for an observer to fish inside the 

closed area. However, vessels are able to retain an additional amount of 

scallops, thereby offsetting the cost of the observer.

• A number of state marine fishery agencies contribute funding to support 

recreational fishery survey data collections, which are accomplished in 

two different ways.24 First, some states contract directly with NMFS 

data collection contractors to fund state-specific survey sample size 

increases. For example, states increase sampling by committing 

additional labor and resources beyond what is paid for with federal 

funds. Second, states can opt to collect survey data through federally 

funded cooperative agreements or as subcontractors of NMFS 

contractors.

• Without access to state budgets, it is difficult for NMFS to assess the 

actual amount of funds contributed directly by individual states, or 

contributed by payment through NMFS contractors, for data 

collections. Estimates of state agency funding contributions, based 

on an assessment of actual sample sizes obtained in recreational 

fishery survey data collections in 2004, total about $3 million and are 

shown in table 11. These estimates are considered to be 

representative of the relatively stable levels of annual contributions 

made from 2000 to 2004.

24Since 1979, recreational fishery surveys have provided a reliable database for estimating 

the impact of recreational fishing on marine resources. In 1997, nearly 17 million anglers 

made 68 million marine fishing trips to the Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific Coasts. The estimated 

marine recreational fish catch was 366 million fish, more than 50 percent of which was 

released alive.
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Table 11: Estimated State Marine Fisheries Agency Funding of Recreational Fishery 

Surveys in 2004

Source: NOAA.

• Recreational survey sample sizes funded with federal dollars are 

adequate for producing coastwide recreational fishery landings 

statistics that are sufficiently precise for most common fish species for 

possible use in conjunction with commercial landings statistics as 

reliable Heinz center indicators. The recreational fishery survey sample 

size increases funded by state agencies are primarily aimed at improving 

the precision of landings statistics for individual states in support of 

state fishery monitoring and management practices. However, such 

state sample size increases have also resulted in even more precise 

coastwide recreational fishery landings statistics.

Advances in NMFS Data 

Collection Activities 

• In some regions, NMFS is testing electronic sampling methods that 

allow the samplers to gather biological data on field computers and 

transfer acquired data via the Internet, to all end users.

• NMFS takes advantage of electronic vessel monitoring systems that 

have been developed to gather daily landings, discards, and bycatch of 

selected species in some commercial fisheries. In addition, days-at-sea 

reporting systems provide fishery managers with information related to 

State Estimated state contributions

California $700,000

Connecticut 78,000

Delaware 150,000

Hawaii 150,000

Maine 50,000

Maryland 30,000

Massachusetts 160,000

New Hampshire 50,000

North Carolina 380,000

Oregon 550,000

Rhode Island 150,000

Virginia 85,000

Washington 700,000

Total $3,233,000
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fishing effort and latent capacity by requiring up-to-date reporting of 

days at sea for certain regulated commercial fisheries.

• At least two identified activities being undertaken by NMFS are 

important in supporting the Heinz Center indicator work. First, 

improvements to the National Fisheries Information System—

efficiency, integration, and standardization of data collection, quality 

assurance, quality control, data processing, statistical estimation, and 

information management across geographic regions and state/federal 

partners—make it easier to combine data from different sources in a 

meaningful way to provide summary coastwide and nationwide 

statistics. Second, the Atlantic Coastal Cooperative Statistics Program 

and other regional, state/federal cooperative fisheries information 

programs are important in supporting the Heinz Center indicator work. 

These programs result in fewer steps needed to access and combine 

data and statistics, bringing the information closer to potential users. 

The ultimate goal of these improvements is to provide both regional and 

national information via the Internet through which users can readily 

gain access to all of the publicly available fisheries data and statistics 

provided by state/federal partner agencies. The national FIS and the 

regional systems will facilitate more rapid access to all the fisheries 

information needed for the indicator report.
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Appendix XI

National Ocean Service, NOAA, Department 

of Commerce ApendxiXI

Background The National Ocean Service (NOS) of the National Oceanic and 

Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) performs multiple functions. NOS 

performs data and information activities to support safe marine navigation, 

collects and analyzes oceanographic data, provides geopositioning 

reference information and standards, manages marine resources, responds 

to hazardous spills, performs coastal damage assessments and restoration 

activities, and monitors and predicts the consequences of natural and 

human-induced marine environmental disturbances. In fulfilling many of 

these diverse responsibilities NOS provides a variety of services, 

information products, and environmental data. For example, NOS develops 

assessments of coastal and ocean resources and habitats, creates and 

maintains data on ambient coastal pollution, and forecasts algal blooms. 

Such assessments and other environmental data are provided by NOS 

primarily through its National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science and its 

programs within the Office of Response and Restoration.

National Centers for Coastal 

Ocean Science

The National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) were formed 

within NOS in March 1999 to evaluate environmental, societal, and 

economic issues through assessments that describe ecosystem conditions, 

forecast future ecological health, and evaluate management strategies and 

their consequences.1

 In doing so, NCCOS provides scientific information 

and tools needed to balance society’s environmental, social, and economic 

goals.2

 NCCOS includes the following entities:

1

One of the primary legislative mandates for NCCOS is the Harmful Algal Bloom and 

Hypoxia Research and Control Act of 1998, Pub. L. No. 105-383, 112 Stat. 3447. In addition, 

the following give NOAA and NCCOS authority: Title II of the Marine Protection, Research, 

and Sanctuaries Act of 1972, 33 U.S.C. §§ 1341-1344, requires the Secretary of Commerce to 

establish a comprehensive monitoring and research program on the effects of ocean 

dumping; Title V of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Authorization Act 

of 1992, 33 U.S.C. § 2803, directs the Administrator of EPA and the NOAA Under Secretary to 

jointly develop and implement a program for the long-term collection, assimilation, and 

analysis of scientific data to measure the environmental quality of the nation's coastal 

ecosystems.

2

According to NOS officials, scientists within NCCOS conduct applied research and manage 

complex long-term research projects. The projects provide a link between research science 

in academia and the needs of those who make decisions on the use of coastal and marine 

areas. NCCOS scientists integrate research across scientific disciplines to examine future 

scenarios of coastal ecosystem conditions. NCCOS strives to maintain a balance between 

basic and applied research and provides the capability to anticipate future environmental 

issues and technologies.
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• Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment. The center assesses 

and forecasts coastal and marine ecosystem conditions through 

research and monitoring. It provides the best available scientific 

information for resource managers and researchers, technical advice, 

and accessibility to data. Scientists conduct field observations on 

regional and national scales with a focus on contaminant, biogeographic 

assessments, and coastal remote sensing. One of the primary ways this 

center addresses pollution is through the National Status and Trends 

Program (NS&T). Scientists in this program conduct long-term 

monitoring of toxic chemicals and environmental conditions at 

approximately 300 sites along U.S. coasts. The program also documents 

the nature and severity of the biological effects associated with toxic 

chemicals in sediments in 30 coastal ecosystems.3

In addition to the data and research activities, a National Estuarine 

Eutrophication Assessment (NEEA) was performed by NOAA initially in 

1992, representing the first comprehensive assessment of estuarine 

eutrophication conditions across the United States.4

 The NEEA mission 

was to provide the basis for sound nutrient management (including 

development of analytical tools for managers) in U.S. estuaries and 

coastal water bodies by measurement and analysis of: (1) status and 

trends of water quality related to nutrient enrichment, (2) causes of 

observed problems (e.g., susceptibility and nutrient loads), (3) 

socioeconomic impacts of nutrients as they relate to water quality

3

Established in 1984, the NS&T’s primary objective is to determine the status of 

environmental quality in the nation's coastal and estuarine waters by monitoring 

contaminants in sediments, bottom-dwelling fish, and bivalve tissues. It is the only 

nationwide source of long-term data on toxic contaminants in U.S. coastal waters and 

estuaries, and provides temporal and regional trends in levels of toxic chemicals in the 

coastal environment and in sentinel organisms like bivalves. The Heinz Center’s 2002 report, 

The State of the Nation’s Ecosystems, lists contaminants in shellfish and contamination in 

bottom sediments as major ecological indicators for coasts and oceans. NS&T’s data and 

information products are available to the public via publications and the Internet.

4

Eutrophication is a process in which nutrients (primarily nitrogen and phosphorus) are 

added to water bodies, stimulating algae growth. Increased algae growth can lead to 

depleted oxygen, which in turn can result in fish kills and losses of submerged grasses that 

act as habitat for nursery fisheries. Estuaries have always received nutrients from natural 

sources in the watershed and from the ocean, but in recent decades, population growth and 

urban runoff, agricultural practices, wastewater treatment plants, and the burning of fossil 

fuels have increased nutrient inputs beyond what occurs naturally.
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degradation, and (4) alternative management responses and the impacts 

of those alternatives.5

In 2002, NOAA facilitated a multidisciplinary workshop of federal 

officials and academics to review the results of the 1999 NEEA. In the 

workshop summary published in April 2004, participants provided a 

framework for the design of a long-term monitoring and assessment 

program to address nutrient overenrichment and consequent 

water-quality problems in estuaries and coastal waters. Participants 

highlighted the importance of classifying estuaries and coastal water 

body types, establishing appropriate variables for characterization of 

nutrient overenrichment status, assessing methods for determination of 

nutrient pollution status and trends, understanding human use 

impairment, developing methods for translation and transfer of data 

and information from scientists to managers, identifying and developing 

a database or data access framework, identifying long-term data 

sources, and identifying potential partnerships to support long-term 

efforts.

• Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research. The center develops and 

improves predictive capabilities for managing the nation’s use of its 

coastal resources through competitive research programs. It supports 

efforts to translate the results of its research investments, and those of 

others, into accessible and useful information for coastal managers, 

planners, lawmakers, and the public to help balance the needs of 

economic growth with those of conserving the resources of the nation’s 

Great Lakes, estuaries, and coastal oceans.

• Center for Coastal Fisheries and Habitat Research. The center 

supports research such as habitat dependence, ecosystem modeling, 

food webs, physiology, genetics, and oceanography. In addition, the 

center maps and characterizes coastal habitats such as salt marshes, 

seagrass meadows, and coral reefs to develop an understanding of the 

processes that determine their functioning and utilization by humans 

and other species. A primary use of this knowledge is to plan and 

monitor restoration of damaged habitats.

5

The NEEA was based on nutrient related loading and water quality data and information 

acquired from scientists and resource managers for 138 US estuaries and coastal waters. 

The data and information for individual systems was summarized to show conditions on a 

regional and national basis, painting a picture of the conditions, causes and future outlook 

of eutrophic symptoms in the nation’s coastal waters.
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• Center for Coastal Environmental Health and Biomolecular Research. 

The center conducts interdisciplinary research to resolve issues related 

to coastal ecosystem health, environmental quality, and related public 

health impacts. Chemical, biomolecular, microbiological, and 

microscopic cell tissue research is conducted to describe, evaluate, and 

predict the significant factors and outcomes of natural and human 

influences on marine and estuarine habitats.

• The Hollings Marine Laboratory. The laboratory provides science and 

biotechnology applications to sustain, protect, and restore coastal 

ecosystems, emphasizing linkages between environmental and human 

health in a multiinstitutional and multidisciplinary environment. Partner 

institutions include NOAA’s NCCOS, South Carolina Department of 

Natural Resources, the University of Charleston, the National Institute 

of Standards and Technology, and the Medical University of South 

Carolina. 

These NCCOS entities facilitate and conduct research on five key stressors 

or causes of ecosystem change (pollution, land and resources use, invasive 

species, climate change, and extreme natural events):6

• Pollution. Pollutants, such as toxic metals, petroleum hydrocarbons, 

industrial chemicals, pesticides, and nutrients can cause a wide range of 

adverse biological effects in organisms, including direct chemical 

toxicity, genetic damage, physiological abnormalities, compromised 

immune systems, biochemical alterations, and behavioral aberrations. 

Excessive input of nutrients in coastal waters causes unwanted algal 

growth, oxygen depletion, species death, and altered food chains or 

species composition.

• Land and resource use. NCCOS develops products, applications, and 

processes for defining and interpreting the relationships between 

species distributions and their environments in coastal ecosystems. In 

doing so, NCCOS engages in cooperative efforts among several 

agencies, including NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey, the U.S. 

6

The geographic scope of NCCOS’s research includes coastal watersheds to the outer 

boundary of the U.S. 200 mile Exclusive Economic Zone. Because of the large size of this 

research area, NCCOS focuses primarily on those ecosystems managed directly and 

indirectly by NOAA. These ecosystems include coastal estuaries, national marine 

sanctuaries, and coral reef ecosystems.
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Department of the Interior, state and local governments, and various 

educational institutions.

• Invasive species. The introduction of nonnative species to coastal U.S. 

ecosystems has profound environmental effects. For example, invasive 

algae and nonnative fishes are wreaking havoc with Hawaiian coral 

reefs, zebra mussels are overwhelming native shellfish populations in 

the Great Lakes, and the European green crab is exceedingly prevalent 

in the Northeast, where it competes more successfully than native crabs 

for local resources. NCCOS is conducting assessment studies to 

examine species ecology in coastal waters and estuaries that are being 

impacted by invasive species.

• Climate change. Climate affects sea level, sea temperature, ocean 

currents, storm frequency and intensity, and levels of precipitation. 

Changes in climate can cause stress on coastal communities and 

ecosystems. Research suggests that climate change may lead to rising 

sea levels or changes in ocean salinity, which can alter geographical 

ranges of species. It may also lead to temperature shifts, coastal erosion, 

and increased sediment and pollutant delivery to sensitive ecosystems. 

NCCOS assesses the impacts of climate change on coastal ecosystems 

using satellite imagery provided by NASA and data from NOAA’s 

National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service to 

examine the conditions of an area. Other projects include habitat 

mapping, particularly in coral reef environments, that will help to 

determine a habitat’s baseline conditions and to assess changes over 

time.

• Extreme events. Extreme natural events, such as hurricanes, 

earthquakes, and floods, cause major stress on the natural environment. 

To assess and monitor a variety of extreme events, the centers partner 

with several other NOAA agencies, including the National Weather 

Service, National Data Buoy Center, Coastal Services Center, and the 

National Ocean Service’s Center for Operational Oceanographic 

Products and Services.

Office of Response and 

Restoration

Among other things, the Office of Response and Restoration (ORR) 

provides environmental data in the form of the Environmental Sensitivity 

Index (ESI), which is a product of the Hazardous Materials Response
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Division within ORR.7 ESI maps are generated to identify vulnerable 

coastal locations before a potential hazardous spill occurs, so that 

protection priorities can be established and oil and chemical cleanup 

strategies identified. The data are directed primarily to the spill response 

community, which uses the data both for planning and response. The spill 

response community is composed of individuals from ORR and other 

NOAA programs, a wide array of other federal, state and local government 

agencies, industry, and academia. Secondary users are coastal zone 

managers, and nonprofit organizations use the data to track changes in 

shoreline usage and to examine species distribution. The maps, available 

for nearly all of the continental U.S. coastline, Alaska, Hawaii, and U.S. 

territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, and the Virgin Islands, 

are composed of three parts: (1) shoreline classified by physical and 

biological characteristics, (2) sensitive biological resources, and (3) human 

use resources.8

 ESI shoreline types are classified using a combination of 

overflight information, aerial photography, local habitat maps, National 

Wetlands Inventory data, and ground verification.9

According to NOAA officials, ESI maps are the product of collaboration 

with local user communities. Local interest and often financial support are 

major influences in determining what areas will be mapped. Once a project 

is undertaken, resident experts provide information regarding the presence 

and geographic extent of both the biological and human-use resources. 

7

Established on February 28, 1999, ORR brought together three programs previously housed 

in NOS’s Office of Ocean Resources Conservation and Assessment. ORR currently consists 

of the Hazardous Materials Response Division, the Coastal Protection and Restoration 

Division, and the Damage Assessment Center. Broadly, the legislative mandates for ORR are 

the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, the Clean Water Act, and the Comprehensive Environmental 

Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980.

8

The ESI shoreline classification system is based on 10 standard shoreline types, with a 

variety of subtypes specific to particular geographic regions.

9

According to NOAA officials, the Heinz Center chose to place shoreline types into five 

categories. ORR worked with experts from the Heinz Center to determine what shoreline 

categories were appropriate and how the NOAA ESI types would collapse into these five 

shoreline types. All of the existing ESI data were then processed to determine the number of 

miles of each shoreline type present within the geographic regions specified by the center. 

The shoreline types were determined by consolidating atlases by region, and were placed 

into five primary categories based on substrate and slope: (1) steep sand, rock or clay; (2) 

mud or sand flats; (3) beaches (sand or gravel); (4) wetlands and mangroves; and (5) 

armored (e.g., exposed, solid man-made structures and riprap). Some of the atlases used for 

areas in the Pacific Northwest region were 15 years or older. In addition, data are not 

currently available for the majority of coastal regions.
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Experts may include individuals from state and local government agencies, 

other federal agencies, academic institutions and nonprofit organizations. 

Data gathered are then compiled and mapped by ORR. All mapped data are 

reviewed by each of the data providers. Ultimately, the published data 

reflect the species and resources of critical importance mapped as defined 

by the user community.

Summary Overall, agency officials indicated that actual NOS funding levels for fiscal 

year 2005 and proposed for fiscal year 2006 (as shown in fig. 10) are 

expected to result in the continuation of data collection and analysis across 

all programs; in particular, the data used in the 2002 Heinz Center report, 

The State of the Nation’s Ecosystems, is expected to be available at similar 

or improved quality and comprehensiveness when compared with data 

from previous years. The major differences between fiscal year 2000 and 

2001 funding were attributed to additional program increases and targeted 

congressional funding in the following areas: (1) Great Lakes Community 

Grants, (2) Pribilof Island cleanup, (3) National Estuarine Research 

Reserves, (4) Nonpoint pollution implementation grants, and (5) 

construction projects. The primary reason given for the disparity between 

fiscal year 2005 funding and the President’s fiscal year 2006 funding 

proposal is that the latter does not include congressional earmarks and 

program increases that were provided for in the fiscal year 2005 

Consolidated Appropriations Act. For example, the fiscal year 2005 

Consolidated Appropriations Act provided $41.6 million (with the 

rescissions) for the Coastal and Estuarine Land Conservation Program. The 

President’s fiscal year 2006 budget proposal did not provide funds for the 

program.
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Figure 10: National Ocean Service Budget for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 and Proposed 

for Fiscal Year 2006

Note: Funding levels were adjusted for inflation using a chained GDP price index based on information 

from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Congressional Budget 

Office.

According to NOAA officials, only in the event of a severe budget reduction 

would NCCOS, ORR, and other agency data activities be halted; however, 

minor budget reductions may have an impact on the breadth and 

comprehensiveness of certain data collection and fieldwork activities.

• The National Status and Trends Program (NS&T) has experienced 

moderate fluctuating budgets with an overall decline over 20 years but is 

expecting an increase in fiscal year 2006. A major challenge of the NS&T 

program is that fiscal year 2005 funding, as well as proposed fiscal year 

2006 funding, does not provide sufficient staff and the necessary skill 

sets to produce data products and services that keep pace with the 

quantity and quality of data generated by the program annually.

Proposed fiscal year 2006 funding

Fiscal year

Funding level (in millions)

Source: NOAA.

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

Inflation adjusted (FY ’00 dollars)

Appropriated funds

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 
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• A reduced effort on data collection—for example, in the Mussel Watch 

program within the NS&T—could impact the scope of analyses and the 

ability to report on such ecological indicators as contaminants in 

sediments, benthic fish, and bivalve tissues and on emerging 

contaminants of concern. At the same time, however, a recent external 

NS&T program review recognized the value of the program for NOAA 

and recommended that NOAA take steps to increase and stabilize 

support for the program. NOAA plans to maintain this data program as 

long as marine pollution remains a serious issue for the nation. NOAA 

recognizes its unique role in contaminant monitoring and in the 

development of bioeffects and eutrophication assessments for the 

nation’s coastal ecosystems.

• A reduction in fieldwork would require NOS to rely heavily on external 

data sources, over which the agency has limited or variable influence. 

For example, if NS&T data collection efforts had to be severely reduced, 

then NOS would rely most heavily on data from such programs as the 

Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Monitoring and 

Assessment Program, the Gulf of Maine’s Mussel Watch project, and the 

USGS’s National Water Quality Assessment program. However, these 

alternative data sources do not cover the same temporal period or 

spatial distribution as the NS&T data. 

• Any further reduction in funding to the NEEA project would eliminate 

the staff necessary to conduct, summarize, and synthesize the data that 

is held in other agencies and organizations. At present, there is only one 

full-time federal staff position and one contractor part-time position 

assigned to the NEEA update. Any reduction in funds would eliminate 

the contract position, and preclude travel required to host scheduled 

NEEA workshops.

• Only under a severe budget reduction would there be an impact to the 

continued reporting of data as used in the Heinz Center report. Agency 

officials stated that, on the whole, data utilized in the 2002 Heinz Center 

report, The State of the Nation’s Ecosystems, is expected to be available 

in a comparable form in subsequent report iterations.

Agency officials reported anticipated modifications to programs that 

support ecological indicators to reflect new approaches assessing 

nationwide contaminant trends in coastal ecosystems. This is based largely 

on the findings stemming from a recent NS&T program review, conducted 

by NOAA scientists and by an external panel of scientists from other 
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federal agencies and academia. The report from the second review session, 

held in February 2005, was received in the spring of 2005. A positive change 

in the way data is being delivered to users has already been implemented as 

of February 2005, and will continue to be improved in the coming months: 

Data is now publicly available via a new data portal, accessed through a 

Web site, and users of the site may create reports based on parameters they 

choose. This change was initiated to make the scientific information 

collected through the program more widely available to, and more easily 

used by, coastal and ocean resource managers, academics, and others.

Efforts are also under way within NOAA to obtain raw data records, 

perform quality assurance, develop digital data for long-term archival, and 

disseminate data in digital format as a means to addressing challenges in 

maintaining and building data programs with currently available funds. 

According to agency officials, the change in the way data is being delivered 

should make it easier to include relevant data in the follow-on Heinz Center 

ecological indicator report, anticipated in 2007.

Agency Perspectives 

on Potential Impacts of 

Funding Levels and 

Program Changes

NOS officials provided the following information on funding levels and 

program priorities relative to the ability of certain NOS data programs and 

centers to continue providing environmental and ecological data 

comparable with data provided in past years:

• The NOS budget is derived from numerous “line items” in the NOAA 

budget. NOS is considered one budget “activity” with three 

“subactivities”: (1) Navigation Services, (2) Ocean Resources 

Conservation and Assessment, and (3) Ocean and Coastal Management. 

NOS funds dedicated to environmental data collection, analysis, 

processing, and dissemination have composed approximately 80 

percent of the entire NOS budget for fiscal years 2000 through 2005, and 

proposed for fiscal year 2006.10

10This assumes that the following items were not included: the Coastal Zone Management 

Grants program, which was not considered as being dedicated to environmental data 

collection; the Coastal and Estuarine Land Conservation Program, created by Congress in 

2001 to provide grants to states or local units of government in order to protect coastal and 

estuarine areas with significant conservation, recreation, ecological, historical, or aesthetic 

values (or areas that are threatened by conversion from their natural state to other uses); 

and construction projects.
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• Estimates of specific funding amounts for the various NOS programs 

from fiscal year 2000 through 2005, as well as proposed funding for 

fiscal year 2006, are portrayed in table 12 (aggregate totals are presented 

in fig. 10):

Table 12: Selected NOS Entities Responsible for Environmental Data and Respective Funding Levels for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 

and Proposed for Fiscal year 2006a

Source: NOAA.

a

Funding estimates based on enacted appropriation for fiscal years 2000-2005. The fiscal year 2006 

column is based on the President’s proposed budget.

b

Fiscal year 2000 funding includes part or all of the following budget lines: Ocean Assessment 

Program, Oceanic and Coastal Research, and Coastal Ocean Program.

c

Fiscal year 2001 funding includes part or all of the following budget lines: Ocean Assessment 

Program, Oceanic and Coastal Research, and Coastal Ocean Program. In addition, funding includes 

$5 million for Harmful Algal Blooms provided under the Coastal and Ocean Activities heading.

d

Fiscal year 2002 funding includes part or all of the following budget lines: Ocean Assessment 

Program Base, Pfiesteria and HAB Rapid Response, South Florida Ecosystem, Harmful Algal Bloom 

Research, Oceanic and Coastal Research Base, Fish Forensics/Enforcement, MEHRL, 

Pfiesteria/Toxins Research, Coastal Ocean Program Base, ECOHAB, Hypoxia, and South Florida 

Ecosystem.

e

Fiscal year 2003 funding includes part or all of the following budget lines: Ocean Assessment 

Program Base, Pfiesteria and HAB Rapid Response, South Florida Ecosystem, Harmful Algal Blooms, 

Beaufort NC, Oxford MD, Oceanic and Coastal Research Base, Fish Forensics/Enforcement, MEHRL, 

Dollars in millions

2000b 2001c 2002d 2003e 2004f 2005g 2006

National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science

Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment $4.7 $6.2 $7.2 $10.4 $9.2 $14.0 $8.9

National Status and Trends Program 1.0 0.8 0.9 0.8 1.0 0.8 1.0

Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research 19.3 28.0 29.2 21.0 14.9 30.5 19.0

Center for Coastal Fisheries and Habitat 

Research 1.9 2.4 2.4 4.8 5.3 7.9 6.0

Center for Coastal Environmental Health and 

Biomolecular Researchh 8.4 8.7 9.8 14.0 18.0 20.1 9.2

The Hollings Marine Laboratory 0.5 1.3 1.5 4.0 5.2 4.5 3.8

Subtotal $35.8 $47.4 $51.0 $55.0 $53.6 $77.8 $47.9

Office of Response and Restoration

Hazardous Materials Response Division $3.5 $3.9 $5.0 $5.0 $5.4 $5.0 $5.0

Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) mapping 

activities 0.2 0.3 0.1 0.2 0.4 0.2 0.2

Subtotal $3.7 $4.2 $5.1 $5.2 $5.8 $5.2 $5.2

Total $39.5 $51.6 $56.1 $60.2 $58.2 $83.0 $53.1
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Pfiesteria/Toxins Research, Coastal Ocean Program Base, ECOHAB, Hypoxia, and South Florida 

Ecosystem.

f

Fiscal year 2004 funding includes the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science line item, and a 

portion of NOS Salaries and Expenses.

g

Fiscal year 2005 funding includes the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science line item, and a 

portion of the Ocean Assessment Program base budget line South Florida Ecosystem.

h

The Center for Coastal Environmental Health and Biomolecular Research includes facilities in both 

Charleston, South Carolina, and Oxford, Maryland.

• Approximately $823,000 was provided to the Center for Coastal 

Monitoring and Assessment in fiscal year 2005 through NOAA’s 

Ecosystems Observation Program. This included $458,000 for 

programmatic funds (contracts) for the NS&T program and an 

additional $365,000 for staff salaries.

NOAA Environmental and 

Ecological Data Sets

• NOAA and NCCOS conduct a wide variety of coastal environmental 

monitoring and research studies that generate invaluable data sets on 

the biodiversity, abundances, and distributions of marine benthic 

(bottom-dwelling) species. Recent efforts have set out to capture this 

information and make it available as a readily accessible resource to 

support the needs of other related programs dealing with important 

coastal management, research, and educational issues.

• A primary outcome of recent efforts is the centralized NOAA 

National Benthic Inventory (NBI), set up as a dynamic quantitative 

database on the biodiversity and abundances of marine benthic 

species that is accessible through a corresponding Web site.11 The 

NBI is intended to provide access to relevant biological information 

through automatic database queries by species name, project name, 

or geographic region; and provides links to additional NCCOS data 

sources on other environmental data from corresponding sites (e.g., 

the NOAA NS&T Web site for chemical contaminant and toxicity 

data). The framework for the NBI was completed in 2003 and the 

Web site was approved for public release in March 2004.

• An additional significant accomplishment in fiscal year 2005 has been 

the successful completion of a digital gateway linking the NBI with 

the Ocean Biogeographic Information System (OBIS), a Web-based 

11See http://www.nbi.noaa.gov.
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provider of worldwide geo-referenced data on marine species.12 OBIS 

is the information component of the Census of Marine Life, a 10-year 

initiative involving more than 45 nations to assess and explain the 

diversity, distribution, and abundance of life in the oceans. OBIS 

includes information on all types of marine species (plants, algae, 

protozoans, invertebrates, and vertebrates) from various parts of the 

world. The new link to the NBI provides OBIS with an additional 

source of data on marine-benthic invertebrate species from studies 

conducted throughout the United States by NCCOS and its partners. 

The link also provides an opportunity for the NBI, in serving as a 

source of biological observations, to become an integral component 

of a larger integrative ocean observing system with access to a 

broader range of species and geographic regions. Users of OBIS 

include scientists, marine resource managers and policymakers, 

educators, students, and the public.

• NCCOS has a project titled “Development of Indicators for Assessing 

and Mitigating Risks of Biological Effects from Sediment-Associated 

Stressors” that is devoted specifically to the development of new 

ecological indicators. The purpose of this project has been to develop 

reliable indicators and associated thresholds for detecting and 

predicting risks of adverse effects of sediment-associated stressors on 

the integrity of ambient bottom-dwelling (benthic) organisms.13 A key 

goal of the project is to use information on the responses of these 

organisms in the development of optimal sediment-quality targets and 

restoration goals in order to sustain healthy coastal conditions and 

maintain the integrity of living resources. Specifically, work in recent 

years by NCCOS and its partners has resulted in two related types of 

products: (1) development of indices of biotic integrity as indicators of 

the condition of ambient benthic fauna in relation to the quality of their 

surrounding sediment environment; and (2) derivation of benthic-based 

sediment quality targets for assessing and predicting the incidence of 

degraded benthic condition within different ranges of sediment 

12See http://www.iobis.org.

13Bottom-dwelling or benthic biota are a key component of coastal ecosystems, playing vital 

roles in detrital decomposition, nutrient cycling, and energy flow to higher trophic levels. 

Benthic fauna live in close association with bottom substrata, where contaminants tend to 

accumulate and where low-oxygen conditions are typically the most severe. Because of 

their relatively stationary existence, it is difficult for these organisms to avoid pollutants and 

other adverse conditions in their immediate surroundings, and as such, they are good 

signals of human-induced stress.
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contamination. The products have been put to use in various coastal 

assessment applications, including state and national coastal condition 

reports.

National Status & Trends 

(NS&T) Program

• The Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment’s NS&T program has 

experienced moderately fluctuating budgets with an overall decline over 

20 years and is expecting an increase in fiscal year 2006. A major 

challenge of the NS&T program is that fiscal year 2005 funding, as well 

as proposed fiscal year 2006 funding, does not provide for sufficient 

staff and the necessary skills to produce data products and services that 

keep pace with the quantity and quality of data generated by the 

program annually. Furthermore, additional NS&T activities 

supplemental to the key program activities, including recovering 

historical data, conducting bioeffects assessment studies, and building a 

Web-based statistical analysis tool for NS&T data, are desired but 

currently not budgeted, and are estimated to cost $200,000 in fiscal 

years 2005 and 2006.

• Due to past funding levels, NS&T has had to adjust the geographic scope 

and magnitude of sampling activities for each of the projects that 

constitute the integrated NS&T program—namely the Mussel Watch and 

BioEffects projects.14 The Mussel Watch project uses shellfish to 

measure general ambient contaminant concentrations in the nation’s 

estuaries and whether these contaminants are increasing or decreasing. 

Similarly, the BioEffects project identifies and assesses biological 

effects associated with contaminant exposure. Thirty intensive regional 

studies, of 2- to 4-year durations, have been conducted since 1986. The 

BioEffects databases, when complete, will include: sediment, tissue, and 

water chemistry for over 80 organic and inorganic contaminants; 

toxicity bioassays; biomarker assays; histopathology; and benthic 

community assessment.

• The NS&T program has continued to characterize the extent of 

sediment contamination in the nation’s estuaries since 1986 and has 

14Coastal states with contaminant "hot spots" and those where restoration or remedial 

activities have taken place have asked NOAA to consider establishing long-term 

environmental monitoring sites, using natural populations or caged mussels as sentinel 

species. These requests have not been made to alter the program, but instead to tailor 

aspects of the program to meet user needs.
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the longest-running primary data record for such information. In 

previous years, some of NOAA’s monitoring and assessment 

activities, including the characterization of chemical contamination 

in bottom sediments and the condition of bottom-dwelling animals, 

have been conducted in collaboration with the estuarine component 

of the EPA Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program.15

Such joint activities included work in the Chesapeake Bay, along the 

coasts of the Carolinas, and in the Hudson-Raritan and Long Island 

Sound estuaries.

• Half of the Mussel Watch project sites are now sampled every other 

year, rather than annually, due to funding limitations. If Mussel Watch 

samples were collected at sites on a further reduced schedule—for 

example, on a 3-year cycle—the ability to determine changes in 

environmental trends would take years longer and the likelihood of 

not identifying the release of regulated chemicals would become 

more likely. Data quality, however, would not be adversely affected 

by a reduction in sample collection and the resultant analyses in the 

Mussel Watch project. 

• In fiscal year 2005, approximately $823,000 is required to operate the 

Mussel Watch component of the NS&T.16 Of that total, $413,000 will 

be used to collect and analyze bivalve mollusks for a suite of over 100 

toxic contaminants at coastal sites from around the United States. An 

amount of $8,700 was used in fiscal year 2005 to conduct an outside 

review of the NS&T program, done periodically to ensure the 

program is meeting its goals and objectives, and the needs of the user 

community.17 In addition, $15,000 was used to reinstitute “specimen 

banking,” in which some of the tissues collected are archived for 

later analysis. Specimen banking allows for retrospective analyses of 

15The joint Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program-NCCOS Estuaries sediment 

data were of use to the Heinz Report, and data from subsequent collaborative efforts in near 

coastal shelf waters along the West and East Coasts of the United States (sampled in 2003 

and 2004) will be useful in future relevant reports.

16In fiscal years 2004 and 2005, Mussel Watch was included under the “Ecosystems 

Observations Program (EOP),” and is included in the Center for Coastal Monitoring and 

Assessment base budget estimate in table 12.

17The recent NS&T program review recognized the value of the program for NOAA and 

recommended that NOAA take steps to increase and stabilize support for the program. 

Plans are to maintain this important record as long as marine pollution remains a serious 

issue for this country.
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chemicals that have not yet been recognized as a threat. The 

remaining funds will be used for salaries/overhead ($353,214) and for 

NS&T program-related travel, supplies, and equipment ($33,086).

• The NS&T program has recently undergone thorough reviews, the latest 

being in February 2005, and a scientific review panel provided their 

recommendations in early April. The review panel was composed of 

some of the world’s most respected scientists in the field, each bringing 

their unique academic, federal, state, regional, and international 

perspectives to the review. The NS&T program was the beneficiary of 

applying the group’s collective knowledge to streamlining program 

operations, and optimizing its business practices.18 In total, the panel 

provided more than 85 comments and recommendations. These ranged 

in theme from optimizing statistical design to strengthening 

partnerships and outreach. The panel’s key findings, as well as a short 

discussion of how NS&T has already begun to act on many of the 

recommendations provided, are described below:

• Due to its unique history, scope of data collection, exacting 

quality-control standards, and a developing Web site to deliver data 

and derived products, the NS&T program is poised to become the 

leader in national contaminant monitoring, and in the development of 

bioeffects and eutrophication assessments for the nation’s coastal 

ecosystems. The group felt that success in this endeavor could be 

catalyzed by expanding and enhancing internal NOAA and domestic 

U.S. partnerships, by linking relevant initiatives to the Integrated 

Ocean Observing System (IOOS), and by focusing on the needs of the 

nation’s resource managers. NS&T scientists have been working 

closely with agency partners to finalize the data portal, which will

18According to NOAA officials, the panel praised NS&T as one of the most successful and 

longest-running monitoring programs in the United States, and recommended expanding the 

program to include monitoring “emerging contaminants of concern,” as well as continued 

monitoring of existing legacy contaminants. In response, NS&T program scientists 

organized a workshop held in partnership with several other NOAA programs in May 2005. 

The workshop was designed to prioritize expansion of monitoring and research efforts 

based on the consensus of many of the nation's experts in the field.
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 provide resource managers with easy access to program data, and is 

 expected to be ready by the end of fiscal year 2005.19

• The panel recommended that NS&T should strive to become the 

primary program for contaminant information within NOAA. As a 

recognized data clearinghouse within NOAA, NS&T should consider 

developing “knowledge products” (e.g., fact sheets, annual 

summaries, site assessments, etc.) that synthesize data for the 

general public and for coastal mangers (e.g., ranking estuarine 

contamination, completing a national scorecard of coastal 

contamination, etc.), and that this information stream (both data and 

products) should be delivered using the data portal. This 

Web-enabled system can then be used to ensure NS&T maintains an 

explicit link and prominent role within IOOS. NS&T specialists who 

engineered the data portal have already initiated substantive 

conversations with the NOAA IOOS community, and are developing a 

strategy to implement the link as soon as the portal comes online.

• The panel suggested that the NS&T team must first revisit its stated 

goals and objectives to better clarify its vision, to re-establish the 

program’s important work within the “general public’s 

consciousness,” and to articulate its relevance to NOAA, its partners, 

coastal managers, and the broader scientific community. Addressing 

this recommendation was the first action that came from the 

program reviews. Since the February 2005 review, NS&T 

management and personnel have been developing a cogent and 

forward-thinking strategic plan which recognizes the needs of the 

program customers. This 5-year strategic plan is due to be completed 

by August 2005, and will reflect many of the recommendations 

provided by NS&T program review panels.

• Because the NS&T program is the longest-running element of 

national coastal monitoring in the federal government, it should 

19When completed, the database will include quality-assured data from the Mussel Watch, 

Benthic Surveillance, Bioeffects studies, and other components of the program, some of 

which have existed since 1984. The Web site dissemination of data is intended not only to 

improve data accessibility, but also to allow mapping and analyses (e.g., identification of 

point sources of contaminants, trends in specific contaminant loading, etc.) and 

visualization capabilities through a variety of data display and analytical tools. Its use will 

greatly facilitate sharing of coastal environmental data among researchers, resource 

managers, and the public at large, thereby promoting more informed and transparent 

decisions.
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contribute to the backbone of the National Water Quality Monitoring 

Network as envisaged under recommendations of the U.S. 

Commission on Ocean Policy and as included in the U.S. Ocean 

Action Plan.20 NS&T has acted swiftly on this guidance by assigning 

senior personnel to participate from start to finish as members on the 

National Water Quality Monitoring Council, charged with developing 

the National Water Quality Monitoring Network. This will ensure that 

NS&T capabilities play prominently among components of the 

Network once in place.

Environmental Sensitivity 

Index (ESI)

• Stakeholders such as local-use communities contribute financial 

support and are major influences in determining areas for 

Environmental Sensitivity Index (ESI) maps. ESI maps are often the 

product of collaboration among such stakeholders, and assurances of 

their participation are sought with respect to data collection before an 

ESI atlas project is begun. For example, the Coast Guard and Minerals 

Management Service often provide funding for ESI mapping. Much of 

the Alaska ESI work was funded by the Prince William Sound Oil Spill 

Recovery Institute, a program authorized by Congress through the Oil 

Pollution Act of 1990, in part to identify and develop the best available 

techniques for preventing and responding to oil spills in the Arctic and 

sub-Arctic. State and local governments, environmental agencies, and 

industry occasionally contribute funds for ESI mapping activities, but 

probably influence the ESI mapping efforts more by demonstrating 

interest and acceptance in the ESI methodology.

• Although there are anomalies in ESI maps dictated by local 

environmental variations and needs, NOAA has made a significant effort 

to assure uniformity of ESI maps across regions. In the early 1990s, 

NOAA began an association with a number of states, including 

California, Florida, Texas, and New Jersey in order to obtain input on 

environmental mapping needs and the best way to provide a standard 

20Recognizing the importance of the ocean, coasts, and Great Lakes to the United States, in 

2000, Congress established the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy. Oceans Act of 2000 § 3, 

Pub. L. No. 106-256, 114 Stat. 644. The commission began work in September 2001, and 

pursuant to its legislative mandate, completed a thorough and expansive report, An Ocean 

Blueprint for the 21st Century, on September 20, 2004, which contains proposals for the 

establishment of a comprehensive and coordinated ocean policy for our nation. The U.S. 

Ocean Action Plan was formed to identify immediate, short-term actions that provide 

direction for ocean policy and also outline additional long-term actions for the future.
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mapping product from one locale to the next. Out of this effort, the first 

draft of the Environmental Sensitivity Guidelines was published in April 

1993. It has since been updated twice, providing greater detail and 

refined methods for ESI data mapping. Among other things, the 

guidelines include information on how data should be collected and 

categorized, database structure, a master species list and description of 

ESI shoreline types, and information on how ESI data should be 

symbolized and displayed. This document has helped a few states 

develop their own environmental sensitivity maps that mimic the 

standard NOAA product. The guidelines are strictly followed by NOAA 

and contractors with the intent that a responder can be on any coast and 

have an ESI product that appears just like every other ESI product they 

may have used.

• Coastal areas that have not been mapped digitally or that do not include 

the full suite of standard ESI elements include Maine, Maryland, the 

outer coasts of Washington and Oregon, and the Great Lakes. The 

development of an ESI atlas covering a state or geographic region 

typically takes 12 to 24 months to complete. Costs vary based on the 

complexity and extent of the geographic region, but a typical ESI 

mapping project generally costs $200,000 to $350,000.

• The biggest shortcoming of ESI maps is the length of time between 

updates for a given atlas. The few atlases that are still not available 

digitally were published in the early 1980s. The goal, until now, has been 

to get as much of the coastline mapped as possible and to place the 

maps in GIS formats. Though this goal is nearly met, an update strategy 

has not been developed, and funds are not available to proceed with 

timely updates. The first GIS produced atlases are now around 10 years 

old, while the user community in these areas is established and the 

desire for more current data exists. Lack of annual funding for ESI 

updating efforts is an impediment.

National Estuarine 

Eutrophication Assessment 

(NEEA)

• To complete the update of the NEEA, a streamlined survey collection 

tool is being developed for use by investigators who will enter data 

which will be validated by a simultaneous data collection and synthesis 

effort for a select number of systems. In the 1999 assessment, rather 

than collecting data directly, NEEA staff collected categorical responses 

from survey respondents and participants based on their own synthesis 

and analysis of data for their estuaries or waterbodies.
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• It is difficult to acquire updated data for the NEEA. Due to a lack of 

funding to support a national level data collection and synthesis effort, 

NEEA staff are

• creating and implementing an online data collection survey tool that will 

result in a national database of chlorophyll-a values representing the 

highest measurement levels in the system on an annual basis, in terms of 

spatial area and frequency (there will also be simultaneous case studies 

for select estuaries where data will be collected and analyzed in order to 

validate the results of the survey results); and

• collecting data for 14 estuaries in a pilot study in the North and 

mid-Atlantic Ocean (including the Gulf of Maine), and designing an 

online data collection survey tool to comprehensively collect data 

and information on a national basis for the 138 systems in the 1999 

NEEA report.

• There is no comprehensive sampling program within NOAA that collects 

chlorophyll-a data, though some samples are collected by the National 

Estuarine Research Reserve Program and those working on 

remote-sensing observations. If it were collected, it could be used to 

determine concentrations within estuaries and zones within estuaries, if 

the data were spatially distributed. The 1999 NEEA was based on 

regional reports that show where, within the estuaries studies, the 

elevated chlorophyll-a concentrations occur. 
Page 111 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Appendix XII

Air Quality System, Office of Air Quality 

Planning and Standards, Environmental 

Protection Agency ApendxiXI

Background The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Air Quality 

Planning and Standards (OAQPS) serves to enhance and protect the quality 

of the nation’s air by managing programs to improve air quality where the 

current quality is unacceptable and to prevent deterioration in areas where 

the air is relatively free of contamination. The Clean Air Act required that 

EPA establish a national network to monitor pollutant concentrations in 

ambient air.1

 This network comprises monitoring stations throughout the 

country that are operated by state and local agencies. Accordingly, EPA 

regulations direct states to collect and report air quality data to EPA’s Air 

Quality System (AQS).2

 States are also required to use standardized 

ambient monitoring methodologies and to follow EPA guidelines for 

monitoring siting and other technical requirements, such as the process of 

choosing a location for a monitor.

OAQPS evaluates the status of the atmosphere by comparing ambient air 

conditions with clean air standards and historical information using a 

variety of methods and tools, at the heart of which is a network of ambient 

air quality and meteorology monitoring stations. The data collected from 

these stations are stored in the AQS, which provides data for a variety of 

functions in both the public and the private sectors. The data are used to 

assess air quality, assist in determining attainment/nonattainment 

designations, evaluate state implementation plans for nonattainment areas, 

perform modeling for permit review analysis, enable scientists to study the 

relationships between air quality levels and health and ecological effects 

and evaluate options for emissions control strategies.

Summary Agency officials indicated that the AQS data management system is funded 

entirely from the EPA budget and that the expected funding level for fiscal 

year 2005 and the proposed funding for fiscal year 2006 for operating AQS 

will not have an effect on the ability to provide data of similar quality and 

comprehensiveness when compared with data from previous years. These 

funding amounts represent preinflation-adjusted decreases of about 11

1

42 U.S.C. § 7403(c)(2).

2

40 C.F.R. § 58.35.
Appendix XII

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percent and 7 percent, respectively, when compared with funding received 

for AQS in fiscal year 2004.3

Figure 11: Air Quality System Program Budget for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 and 

Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006

Note: Funding levels were adjusted for inflation using a chained GDP price index based on information 

from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Congressional Budget 

Office.

In addition, agency officials reported that planned improvements to the 

ambient air- monitoring program will result in improved timeliness in 

reporting data to AQS and optimization of the Photochemical Air 

Monitoring Stations (PAMS), which provides information on chemical 

precursors for ozone. Although this may require minor enhancements to 

AQS, officials indicated that it will not have an effect on the system’s ability 

3

EPA officials indicated that funding for AQS for fiscal year 2005 is subject to change as the 

fiscal year progresses.

Proposed fiscal year 2006 funding

Fiscal year

Funding level (in millions)

Source: EPA.

0

1

2

3

Inflation adjusted (FY ’00 dollars)

Appropriated funds

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 
Appendix XII

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Planning and Standards, Environmental 

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Page 113 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

to produce and compare data in the coming years with data generated in 

previous years. As utilized in the 2002 Heinz Center report, The State of the 

Nation’s Ecosystems, agency officials stated that AQS data related to 

ground-level ozone and ozone precursors is expected to be available in an 

improved form for the expected 2007 follow-on indicator report.

Agency Perspectives 

on Potential Impacts of 

Funding Levels and 

Program Changes

EPA officials provided the following information on funding levels and 

program priorities relative to the ambient air-monitoring program’s ability 

to continue providing environmental and ecological data comparable with 

past years:

• Because the ambient air-monitoring program is a high priority within 

EPA’s Office of Air, it is likely that the current data system would 

continue to be funded in the event of funding reductions to EPA’s budget 

for air-quality programs (i.e., funding reductions would be absorbed by 

other, lower-priority air-quality programs). However, funding reductions 

would be likely to adversely affect EPA’s ability to develop 

enhancements to the current data system and, if the funding reduction 

were significant enough, changes could be made to the basic spatial and 

temporal framework of the ambient air-monitoring program, lowering 

the quality of the existing AQS data. In the event of such changes, EPA 

would examine ways to develop alternative monitoring strategies.

• The cost of monitoring pollutants is significantly greater than the cost of 

operating the AQS. For example, in fiscal year 2003, the costs of 

monitoring and collecting ozone data reported into AQS were an 

estimated $34 million, or about $28,000 per monitoring site for the 1,194 

sites. Funding for AQS in fiscal year 2003 was $2.6 million. Operating the 

ambient air-monitoring program, including AQS, requires costs 

associated with contracting for services, staffing, and data processing 

and data storage. Pollutant monitoring activities include costs for 

computer data processing, site installation of monitoring devices, 

sampling and analyses, maintenance, data management, quality 

assurance, supervision within the operating program, and the costs 

associated with coordinating with other agencies. Since the AQS is 

designed to provide data for numerous pollutants, it is difficult to 

identify the costs associated with any one pollutant (such as ozone data 

that were included in the Heinz Center report), and EPA has not 

attempted to do so. Estimates of ozone-monitoring sites and data 

collection costs (using the total number of ozone-monitoring sites and 

prorating the full costs of ozone monitoring and reporting) and AQS 
Appendix XII

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funding between fiscal years 2000 and 2006 were provided by EPA and 

are shown in table 13:

Table 13: Estimates of Ozone Monitoring Sites and Data Collection Costs and 

Overall AQS Funding for Fiscal Years 2000-2006

TBD = To be determined

Source: EPA.

Notes: AQS funding includes the annual costs for the development, operation, and maintenance of the 

AQS data management system. The costs are for contracts, staffing, and system support (e.g., 

password and other user support activities). Not included in these figures are computer related costs 

(e.g., central-processing unit-hours and data storage) for loading and retrieving data from the system 

for all users. These additional costs amount to approximately $0.9 million annually. Funding for fiscal 

year 2005 is subject to change as the year progresses.

Ozone monitoring is performed during the warmer months of the year. EPA does not yet have specific 

estimates of the number of monitors that will be reporting in 2005 and 2006. However, it expects the 

number to be similar to the 1,182 reporting in 2004.

a

President’s proposed budget.

• Regarding changes anticipated in the ambient air-monitoring program, 

specifically with respect to the collection and analysis of monitoring 

data for ozone, over the past several years EPA has been developing a 

new Ambient Air Monitoring Strategy that is intended to change the size, 

composition, and distribution of the current ambient monitoring 

network. The strategy is expected to produce more relevant 

measurements at representative urban and rural locations across the 

country. Minor changes would occur in certain technical specifications 

of the system and the pollutants they measure. For example, in addition 

to having access to ozone data, AQS users are expected to have access 

to a robust set of data on total reactive nitrogen, which is a precursor to 

ozone. The strategy also includes improvements in the timeliness of 

reporting data to AQS and optimization of the Photochemical Air 

Monitoring Stations (PAMS) used to characterize chemical precursors 

Year

Number of ozone sites

reporting to AQS

Costs of monitoring

ozone AQS funding

2000 1,123 $30,068,849 $1,700,000

2001 1,170 32,059,993 2,400,000

2002 1,180 32,906,268 2,500,000

2003 1,194 33,839,222 2,600,000

2004 1,182 33,939,729 2,800,000

2005 TBD TBD 2,500,000

2006 TBD TBD 2,600,000a
Appendix XII

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Planning and Standards, Environmental 

Protection Agency

Page 115 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

for ozone. Although the AQS system is fairly flexible and can handle 

many of the anticipated changes, officials noted that some minor 

enhancements to the system may be needed to implement all of the 

changes expected as a result of implementing the new monitoring 

strategy. Such enhancements typically would expand or improve AQS’s 

operation to support the needs of EPA’s national ambient monitoring 

program. They provide a more user-friendly system for state, local, and 

tribal agencies to submit and retrieve data from the AQS. Most of the 

enhancements are designed to improve the overall operation of the 

ambient air-monitoring program and are not directly related to a 

particular pollutant, such as ozone.

• States, localities, and tribal agencies must monitor and report ambient 

ozone concentrations as well as data on concentrations of five other air 

pollutants that EPA uses as indicators of air quality.4

 EPA provides 

grants to partially fund the establishment and operation of some types 

of monitoring stations, including those for monitoring ozone and its 

precursors. EPA provides funding for monitoring to state, local, and 

tribal air-monitoring agencies under the authority of section 105 of the 

Clean Air Act.5

 Under section 105, EPA may fund up to three-fifths of the 

costs of implementing programs for the prevention and control of air 

pollution or implementation of national primary and secondary ambient 

air-quality standards. Grantees are to provide two-fifths of the costs. 

EPA typically uses section 105 grant authority for programs that are 

ongoing. EPA typically uses different grant authority under section 103 

of the Clean Air Act to provide for full funding of new programs to 

accelerate their deployment.6

 For fiscal year 2005, the actual amount of 

funding to support all ozone-related activities provided to state, local, 

and tribal agencies through section 105 grants was $64,960,023. This 

includes activities that go beyond monitoring and data handling, such as 

development of state implementation plans. Ozone-monitoring activities 

carried out by state, local, and tribal agencies generate data that are 

reported to EPA and processed by the AQS. Some state, local, and tribal 

agencies use AQS as their primary data management system for airquality data. Many other agencies use some of the capabilities of AQS to 

supplement their own systems’ capabilities.

4

42 U.S.C. § 7410(a)(2)(B).

5

42 U.S.C. § 7405(a).

6

42 U.S.C. § 7403(b)(3).
Appendix XII

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Page 116 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

• In general, the factors driving changes to EPA’s air-quality data 

management system have been: (1) changes in the characteristics (e.g., 

size, composition, and location) of the national monitoring program 

with concomitant growth in the volume of data collected; (2) the need 

for additional types of information (e.g., information about other 

pollutants, detailed monitoring site descriptions, and information on 

monitoring methods used to collect the data); (3) the need for the data 

system to perform more sophisticated analyses and provide expanded 

retrieval capabilities; and (4) advances in information technology, 

especially recent advances associated with the widespread use of 

personal computers and the Internet.
Page 117 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Appendix XIII

Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 

Program, Environmental Protection Agency ApendxXiI

Background The Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP) was 

initiated in the late 1980s within the Environmental Protection Agency’s 

(EPA) Office of Research and Development (ORD).1

 EMAP is essentially a 

long-term research and technology transfer program with an internal 

research component and, until recently, an important external research 

component funded by competitively awarded grants. EMAP focuses on 

developing indicators and unbiased statistical design frameworks that 

allow the condition of aquatic ecosystems to be assessed at the local, state, 

regional, and national levels. The current condition of the nation’s aquatic 

ecosystems and the stressors most closely associated with impaired 

condition are key assessment activities. Developing sound scientific 

approaches for these activities has been and continues to be EMAP’s 

primary mission.

Through a probability-based sampling design, the EMAP approach provides 

a statistically valid basis for determining ecological condition with a known 

statistical confidence. When implemented over time, the approach can 

provide quantifiable estimates of the environmental benefits derived from 

EPA’s protection and restoration strategies. Using the EMAP approach, 

ORD hopes to reduce data gaps, develop new hypotheses for testing causeand-effect relationships in ecosystems, and provide scientifically 

defensible assessments of changes and trends in ecosystem conditions.

At the national level, EMAP’s efforts toward comprehensive and 

comparable methods are aimed at permitting, for the first time, meaningful 

assessments and regional comparisons of aquatic ecosystems across the 

1

The need for significant advances in the way EPA and other federal agencies monitored the 

condition of the environment had long been recognized. A 1988 report by EPA’s Science 

Advisory Board (SAB), Future Risk: Research Strategies for the 1990s, concluded that EPA 

needed more research relating the effects of cumulative, regional, and long-term 

anthropogenic disturbances to ecosystems. Increased research was also needed, the SAB 

said, to develop ecological indicators and protocols for monitoring and to analyze and 

quantify uncertainty in assessments resulting from monitoring data. The goals were 

improved detection of ecosystem status and greater predictive capability. Toward these 

ends, SAB recommended that EPA undertake research on techniques that can be used to 

help anticipate environmental problems and make a more concerted effort to be aware of 

and interact with the research efforts of other federal agencies concerned with these 

problems. SAB’s recommendations, the emerging vision of ecological risk assessment 

within EPA, and the importance of high-quality monitoring in this risk assessment paradigm 

were together responsible for the creation of EMAP. EMAP’s challenge was to develop the 

tools necessary for measuring the condition of ecological resources and the designs for 

detecting both spatial and temporal trends.
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United States. EPA regions will benefit as well from consistent and 

comparable environmental data as a result of the EMAP approach, since 

regional decision makers must also prioritize protection activities across 

multiple states and environmental media and often seek to develop 

unbiased state-of-the- region reports for their stakeholders. Finally, at the 

state and local levels, managers and technical staff frequently struggle to 

balance local information needs with federal reporting requirements. The 

goal that EMAP seeks to achieve with state and tribal partners is the 

adoption of a cost-effective monitoring methodology that simultaneously 

serves both levels of decision making.

Summary EPA officials indicated that funding for EMAP for fiscal year 2005 and 

proposed funding for fiscal year 2006 are expected to result in the 

continuation of EMAP research, data collection, and analysis activities that 

will produce data of similar or superior comprehensiveness and quality 

compared with that used to support ecological indicators in the first Heinz 

Center Report, published in 2002. They noted that the strength of the EMAP 

science, the program’s focus on working with the states to produce largescale and national demonstrations of the program’s ecological monitoring 

approach, and the focus on key agency research needs should continue to 

make EMAP a high priority within ORD. Nevertheless, recent reductions in 

the funding of EMAP research, specifically the elimination of funding for an 

important category of extramural research in fiscal year 2005 and 

subsequent years, have the potential to adversely affect the nature and mix 

of EMAP activities and the implementation of the program’s multiyear 

research strategy promulgated in mid-2002.
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Page 119 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Figure 12: Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program Budget for Fiscal 

Years 2000-2005 and Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006

Note: Funding levels were adjusted for inflation using a chained GDP price index based on information 

from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Congressional Budget 

Office.

Despite these funding challenges, program officials reported that progress 

in EMAP research achieved since publication of the first Heinz Center 

report and the expected results of ongoing EMAP studies should enhance 

the ability of the program to provide data in support of ecological 

indicators in future iterations of The State of the Nation’s Ecosystems

report and in EPA’s own State of the Environment Report.

Proposed fiscal year 2006 funding

Fiscal year

Funding level (in millions)

Source: EPA.

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

Inflation adjusted (FY ’00 dollars)

Appropriated funds

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 
Appendix XIII

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Program, Environmental Protection Agency

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Agency Perspectives 

on Potential Impacts of 

Funding Levels and 

Program Changes

EPA officials provided the following information on funding levels and 

program priorities relative to EMAP’s ability to continue providing 

environmental and ecological data comparable with past years:

• All of the direct funding for EMAP has come from the federal 

government, specifically from funds provided through EPA’s Science 

and Technology (S&T) appropriation. Funding of each major component 

of EMAP between fiscal years 2000 and 2005 is shown in table 14.

Table 14: EMAP Enacted Funding Levels for Fiscal Years 2000-2005

Source: EPA.

a

The EMAP-Other category comprises three components: (1) the STAR grants program, until fiscal 

year 2005, when this component of the Ecosystem Protection research program was eliminated; (2) 

workforce support-related costs, which account for the major part of the category (EMAP staff support 

the programmatic design, coordination, planning, and administrative oversight and support of the 

program and its components); (3) the remainder of the category funds general support contracts 

related to the full-time equivalents.

b

Total includes Central Basin resources from the President’s budget for fiscal years 2003 through 2005. 

Fiscal year 2005 funding is subject to congressional approval of the enacted fiscal year 2005 budget.

• In many instances, other federal agencies and states partnering with 

EMAP have provided in-kind contributions. Depending on the particular 

EMAP geographic demonstration, states have contributed in-kind 

support ranging from between 25 percent and 50 percent of the overall 

investment. For example, the National Coastal Assessment (NCA) has 

used cooperative agreements with the 23 marine coastal states and 

territories. These states and territories have met between 10 percent and 

50 percent of the costs necessary to complete the estuarine surveys and 

the subsequent laboratory processing and reporting. The Western EMAP 

program has 11 cooperative agreements with states involved in the 

program. These agreements are augmented by the participation of other 

agencies (primarily United States Geological Survey, or USGS) that have 

Dollars in millions

EMAP Program 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

National Coastal Assessment Program $7.0 $7.5 $7.3 $7.6 $7.5 $8.2

Central Basin Program 0.0 0.0 0.0 4.7 5.7 6.6

Western EMAP Program 8.1 8.1 8.1 6.8 8.0 5.0

Regional EMAP Program 2.1 2.1 2.0 1.5 2.5 2.0

EMAP – Othera 20.3 19.4 22.4 20.7 17.2 11.9

Totalb $37.5 $37.1 $39.8 $41.3 $40.9 $33.7
Appendix XIII

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Program, Environmental Protection Agency

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secondary agreements with some states to conduct the field sampling. 

Additionally, each of the 12 western states contributes staffing and, in 

many cases, equipment that supports the collection of field data for 

Western EMAP. EMAP-Large and Great Rivers (EMAP-GRE) are being 

conducted using partnerships with USGS, states, and the Ohio River 

Sanitary Commission (ORSANCO). Interagency agreements with USGS 

were created to fund state and USGS field crews and laboratory 

analyses. Cooperative agreements with states will be the primary 

vehicle for funding fiscal year 2005 EMAP-GRE activities.

• ORD’s ecosystems protection research program, of which EMAP has 

been an important part since its inception, underwent an OMB Program 

Assessment Rating Tool (PART) review for the President’s fiscal year 

2005 budget request. As a result of that review, the Ecosystems 

Protection Research program received a rating of “results not 

demonstrated.” OMB’s recommendations included a $22 million 

reduction in fiscal year 2005 funding for ORD’s ecosystems research. 

The fiscal year 2005 EMAP research program was reduced by $11.7 

million as part of the overall ($22 million) ecosystems research 

reduction, even though the quality of EMAP and its cost-effectiveness 

were not commented upon by OMB. Reductions to EMAP research were 

taken from the Science to Achieve Results (STAR) grants, a program of 

extramural research that was relied upon to build much of the basic 

scientific underpinnings of EMAP. Because of the elimination of STAR 

grants funding for ecological research, including EMAP-related 

research, for fiscal year 2005 and beyond, the integration of EMAP 

research with academic research through STAR will no longer be 

possible.2

 STAR grant funding was the primary source of academic 

research contributing to EMAP, and the elimination of this research will 

slow the development of new monitoring designs and indicators, the 

adaptation of existing indicators for new uses, and the integration of 

probability designs into state-based impaired water listings for all 

current and proposed EMAP programmatic areas.3

 Within EMAP, some 

2

EMAP STAR funding for fiscal years 2001 through 2004 was as follows: fiscal year 2001, 

$10.2 million (27.6 percent of total EMAP research funding); fiscal year 2002, $11.6 million 

(29.1 percent of total EMAP research funding); fiscal year 2003, $8.5 million (20.6 percent of 

total EMAP research funding), fiscal year 2004, $7.5 million (18.3 percent of total EMAP 

research funding).

3

Under section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act, states must identify bodies of water that are 

not meeting applicable state water-quality standards and submit a list of those waters to 

EPA, along with an explanation of the methodology used to identify them.
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of the intramural personnel (as opposed to STAR-funded external 

researchers) would continue working on these issues. However, the 

effort would be much smaller and less encompassing than that which 

had been previously associated with the STAR program.4

 Moreover, as 

currently configured, EMAP would not be able to fill the void for 

developing new indicators in any of its programs with non-STAR 

extramural funding, with the possible exception of Great Rivers.5

Moreover, if EMAP, as it is currently constituted, is to continue pursuing 

its research goals in conjunction with its state and federal partners, it 

cannot not rely on non-STAR extramural funding to compensate to any 

substantial degree for the loss of the STAR research program.

• While EMAP developed a multiyear research strategy that envisioned 

substantial reliance on extramural research in fiscal years 2005, 2006, 

and 2007, the strategy is flexible and a certain amount of what the 

program seeks to accomplish could be achieved through a combination 

of other means, including intramural research, reduced reliance on 

major national studies, increased use of regional scale studies involving 

EPA regions and states, partnerships and collaborative arrangements 

with other federal agencies (to leverage ORD resources), and by 

extended study time frames. For example, the National Coastal 

Assessment (NCA) is slowing the pace of its national assessments. In 

2005, NCA will embark on a transitional period for state-level estuarine 

condition surveys where a complete national level monitoring will occur 

every 2 years. The first of these survey periods (2005-2006) will be 

completed using ORD resources. ORD will continue to work with EPA’s

4

For example, according to EMAP officials, since approximately fiscal year 1999, the 

development of new or improved indicators for establishing ecological condition has been 

viewed as a research area particularly well-suited to external academic research and has 

been funded through the STAR grants program.

5

EMAP’s attempt to estimate the biological condition of Great Rivers is a “first-of-its-kind” 

research. Because work on large rivers is difficult and dangerous, little work on the 

development of large river condition indicators has been conducted. Recognizing that there 

was not an extensive scientific literature or experience to build from or major centers of 

academic excellence in this field, an indicator development component was built into 

EMAP-GRE. Even in the case of EMAP-GRE, however, EMAP had intended to augment and 

integrate its “in-house” research with academic research through the STAR program.
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Office of Water, EPA regions and the states with the intent of 

transitioning the state-based monitoring to other funding sources.6

• In the case of EMAP-GRE, work is being conducted using partnerships 

with USGS, states, and the Ohio River Sanitation Commission. 

Interagency agreements with USGS were created to fund state and 

USGS field crews and laboratory analyses. Cooperative agreements with 

states will be the primary vehicle for funding fiscal year 2005 activities. 

Due to the loss of funding for the STAR grants program associated with 

EMAP, EMAP-GRE has developed its own research strategy. EMAP 

officials are committed to moving EMAP into new areas of high-impact 

research based on the scientific strength of previous accomplishments.

• Further changes in EMAP research would likely occur in response to 

future budget changes. The areas most vulnerable to budget reductions 

would likely be the continuation of state-level condition surveys for 

aquatic resources through cooperative agreements with the states. 

Integration of new assessment approaches into state monitoring 

programs requires sufficient time and funding to demonstrate the 

efficacy of the approach in the states and educate them on the benefits 

of adopting the approach. It is through state adoption of these 

approaches (i.e., successful technology transfer and institutionalization) 

that aggregation of state-level data into national condition assessments 

would be ensured. Other vulnerable areas would be research affecting 

the ability to conduct regional and national verifications and validations 

of new Clean Water Act section 303(d) listing approaches for impaired 

waters in support of improved total maximum daily load (TMDL) 

development. If further budget reductions were to occur, the new 

approaches would be demonstrated on a smaller scale and with a longer 

time frame. Some EMAP personnel would continue to work on this 

research; however the program would likely no longer have sufficient 

funds to engage large numbers of state partners to participate in 

multiregional or national demonstrations of such approaches. Without 

such large-scale demonstrations of the effectiveness of the improved 

approach to 303(d) listings, EPA’s Office of Water would not have 

6

The NCA has used cooperative agreements with the 23 marine coastal states. These states 

have provided between 10 percent to 50 percent of the costs necessary to complete the 

estuarine surveys and the subsequent laboratory processing and reporting. Memoranda of 

Understandings with NOAA have resulted in NOAA providing an oceangoing research vessel 

at no cost to EPA to conduct the offshore surveys of the West and Southwest coasts and 

plans to do the same for Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Gulf of Mexico surveys.
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widespread data to support development of national guidance to the 

states regarding use of a new approach. In the final analysis, all EMAP 

components and activities could be modified. Modifications could range 

from complete elimination of component programs, transition of 

program components to an EPA program office (e.g., the Office of 

Water), reduced activities in one or more program areas, no further 

large-scale demonstrations, or delaying or eliminating new key research 

areas.

• EMAP-NCA provided information regarding dissolved oxygen, 

chlorophyll, water clarity, nutrient concentrations, and fish tissue 

contaminants to the Heinz Center prior to publication of its 2002 report, 

but the center did not use this information in its report. Subsequently, 

NCA provided the same information for the Heinz Center’s update 

activity in 2003, based on findings from NCA work from 1999 to 2000. 

NCA has collected information on water quality, sediment quality, 

benthic condition, and tissue contaminant variables for marine coastal 

areas of the United States from 1999 to 2004. These data have been, and 

will continue to be, made available to the Heinz Center. The data will 

expand the sediment contaminants and benthic condition information 

to allow a national evaluation. NCA has and will continue to provide its 

water quality and fish tissue contamination to the Heinz Center, as well, 

so that it may be used in future iterations of the center’s report on the 

State of the Nation’s Ecosystems.

• EMAP could provide lake indicators and stream/river indicators for the 

Heinz report. Data collected in EMAP-West is being combined with data 

being acquired on streams in the remainder of the contiguous United 

States by EPA’s Office of Water (OW). EMAP developed a compatible 

design for OW’s stream assessment and is also providing technical 

guidance and analysis support to OW. By combining western stream 

data and data from the remainder of United States streams in OW’s 

assessment, the first National Wadeable Streams Assessment will be 

produced near the end of 2005. This would be available for inclusion in 

the Heinz Center’s report after fiscal year 2005.

• In terms of long-term availability of information to inform and support 

ecological indicators, it is important to bear in mind that EMAP is 

primarily a research and development program, not a long-term 

monitoring program. EMAP’s goal and intent is to transfer its research 

findings and technology to the appropriate entities, typically states, for 

adoption and long-term implementation. If funding reductions were of 
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such magnitude as to prevent the EMAP monitoring approach from 

being adopted by all of the states or mandated by EPA program offices 

or regions, it would not be possible over the long run to realize the full 

potential of this approach for augmenting the body of data needed to 

support ecological indicators, including those contained in the Heinz 

Center report series or in EPA’s own State of the Environment Report.
Page 126 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Appendix XIV

Surveillance and Reporting of Waterborne 

Disease Outbreaks, Centers for Disease 

Control and Prevention, HHS ApendxXiIV

Background Since 1971, a voluntary, collaborative reporting system involving the 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Environmental 

Protection Agency (EPA), and the Council of State and Territorial 

Epidemiologists (CSTE) has been in place to track the occurrences and 

causes of waterborne disease outbreaks (WBDO) associated with drinking 

water.1

 Tracking recreational water-associated outbreaks began in 1978.2

Under this collaborative surveillance system, state, local, and territorial 

health officials and epidemiologists use a standard form to report 

outbreaks of waterborne diseases to CDC.3

 Through the compilation and 

reporting of WBDO data in periodic summaries, local and state health 

departments and others involved in the implementation of water protection 

programs have become more aware of factors involved in WBDOs. 

Moreover, through this collaborative system it has been possible to make 

assessments of trends in causative agents, focus attention on common 

errors in water handling, assist in setting program priorities and planning 

activities, and institute better training programs. Information from the 

WBDO surveillance system has influenced EPA’s research priorities and has 

1

The reporting of waterborne diseases in the United States began in 1920 when state and 

territorial health officers, concerned about high morbidity and mortality caused by typhoid 

fever and infant diarrhea, recommended that cases of enteric fever be investigated and 

reported. Statistical data regarding U.S. WBDOs were collected by different researchers and 

federal agencies between 1920 and 1970. With the exception of a few waterborne diseases, 

however, there are no specific federal legislative or regulatory mandates for collecting or 

reporting information on WBDOs associated with either drinking water or recreational 

water. Public health departments in states, territories and localities continue to have 

primary responsibility for detecting and investigating WBDOs. At the outset of this 

collaboration in 1971, the WBDO Surveillance System served three objectives: (1) disease 

control, (2) improved knowledge of disease causation, and (3) provision of administrative 

guidance. These objectives continue to provide the basic rationale for the system.

2

The unit of analysis for the WBDO surveillance system is an “outbreak,” not an individual 

case of a waterborne disease. Two criteria must be met for an event to be defined as a waterassociated disease outbreak. First, two or more people must have experienced a similar 

illness after exposure to water. This criterion is waived for single cases of laboratoryconfirmed primary amebic meningoencephalitis, single cases of wound infections 

associated with exposure to recreational water, and for single cases of chemical poisoning, 

if water-quality data indicate contamination by the chemical. Second, epidemiologic 

evidence must implicate water as the probable source of the illness. Reported outbreaks 

caused by water or ice contaminated at the point of use (e.g., a contaminated water faucet 

or serving container) are not classified as water-associated outbreaks.

3

CDC uses a standard form (form 52.12) to collect this data. Numeric and text data are 

abstracted from the form and supporting documents and are entered into a CDC database 

system that tracks the occurrences and causes of WBDOs associated with drinking water 

and recreational water.
Appendix XIV

Surveillance and Reporting of Waterborne 

Disease Outbreaks, Centers for Disease 

Control and Prevention, HHS

Page 127 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

influenced the development of improved drinking-water-quality regulations 

and the development of guidelines for recreational activities in freshwater 

and coastal waters as well as documenting decreases in drinking-waterrelated outbreaks following institution of new EPA regulations.

Periodically (typically once every 2 years), CDC publishes summary 

statistics on waterborne disease outbreaks in a publication series referred 

to as the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) Surveillance 

Summaries.

4

 In 1989, management of the waterborne disease surveillance 

system within CDC moved to the Division of Parasitic Diseases (DPD), a 

division of the National Center for Infectious Diseases, and continues to be 

managed by that group. In collaboration with EPA, CDC staff receives, 

analyzes, and compiles the information submitted via the collaborative 

reporting system.5

 CDC has no full-time staff dedicated to the WBDO 

surveillance system; staff time is devoted to the activity as available. 

Furthermore, CDC does not track the use of staff time for this purpose and 

does not seek or obtain reimbursement for it. After the WBDO surveillance 

data has been analyzed and summarized and is ready for publication, it is 

made available in printed copies of the MMWR Surveillance Summary and 

posted to CDC’s Web site, which can be freely accessed.

Summary CDC officials indicated that while their agency’s participation in the 

collaborative WBDO surveillance system is not mandated, they are 

confident that CDC will continue to play the role that it has played in this 

system over the past 30-plus years. They indicated, in particular, that data 

from the WBDO surveillance system used to support ecological indicators 

in the 2002 Heinz Center report, The State of the Nation’s Ecosystems, are 

expected to continue to be available at similar or superior levels of quality 

4

All MMWR publications are in the public domain, and the majority of issues from 1992 to 

the present are available on the Internet. The first surveillance summary of WBDOs was 

published in the MMWR on June 1, 1988. Prior to this, surveillance data from 1971 through 

1984 were published in a series of status reports by the Enteric Diseases Branch of the 

Division of Bacterial Diseases of CDC.

5

DPD and EPA each play important roles in evaluating and ranking the reports that are 

received and in follow-up activities, as necessary, to address gaps, discrepancies, or 

ambiguities in the reports. If any discrepancies, errors, or other inconsistencies are found 

during this process, the CDC WBDO Surveillance System Coordinator contacts the health 

department in question for clarification. An extensive clearance process is undertaken with 

EPA staff and key experts within CDC that have relevant expertise (parasitic, bacterial, 

viral, or environmental health).
Appendix XIV

Surveillance and Reporting of Waterborne 

Disease Outbreaks, Centers for Disease 

Control and Prevention, HHS

Page 128 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

and comprehensiveness when compared with data from prior years. CDC 

officials also indicated that there are no planned changes for the WBDO 

surveillance system that would adversely affect the system’s ability to 

provide data that can be compared with data in prior years. In fact, planned 

enhancements to the system should improve the collection of WBDO 

information and its analysis and reporting.6

Agency Perspectives 

on Potential Impacts of 

Funding Levels and 

Program Changes

CDC officials provided the following information on funding levels and 

program priorities relative to the ability of the WBDO surveillance system 

to continue providing environmental and ecological data comparable with 

past years:

• Costs that are specifically accounted for by CDC in connection with the 

WBDO surveillance system are for publication of the MMWR 

Surveillance Summaries of WBDOs. These costs have varied in recent 

calendar years, totaling, for example, $4,882 in 2000, $10,285 in 2002, and 

$10,696 in 2005. The total costs of publications for fiscal years 2000 

through 2005 have amounted to $25,863. CDC officials reported that 

there have been discussions with EPA that resulted in EPA paying for 

publication costs of the 2001-2002 MMWR Surveillance Summaries. 

Discussions are also ongoing regarding the possibility of that agency 

sharing the costs of publication of the MMWR Surveillance Summaries

in the future.

• Despite there being no statutory or other requirements for CDC’s 

participation in the WBDO surveillance system, officials said that there 

is a demonstrated commitment on the part of CDC to continue to 

support the system in the same way it has done for the past 30-plus 

6

The consensus among experts is that the actual incidence of WBDOs is far greater than that 

reported by the MMWR Surveillance Summaries. The sensitivity of the WBDO surveillance 

system (i.e., the probability that an actual outbreak will be identified correctly, reported to 

CDC, and recorded into the surveillance database) is unknown because the actual number 

of WBDOs cannot be determined. However, the sensitivity of the system is probably low 

because of underreporting of WBDOs, likely caused by lack of recognition that an outbreak 

is occurring or has already occurred. Multiple sequential barriers exist to reporting cases of 

outbreak-related illness, including that many people who become ill after exposure to 

drinking water or recreational water do not make a connection between their exposure and 

their illness and may not seek medical treatment. To complicate matters, standardized 

clinical and environmental laboratory methods that are both sensitive and specific are 

lacking for many viruses, and routine testing for parasites in fecal samples is not always 

done.
Appendix XIV

Surveillance and Reporting of Waterborne 

Disease Outbreaks, Centers for Disease 

Control and Prevention, HHS

Page 129 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

years. The information on WBDOs that has been obtained through the 

WBDO surveillance system is very important to CDC, state and local 

health and environmental authorities, and the EPA. CDC’s strategic 

objective for the surveillance system is to continue to work 

collaboratively to meet the goals for which it was originally established 

and to make improvements to the system wherever possible.

• EPA and CDC scientists recently determined that more information 

needed to be collected through the WBDO reporting system. As a 

result, the WBDO surveillance system report form was revised to 

allow for more specific reporting of water source or setting, water 

treatment, and factors contributing to water contamination, 

particularly pertaining to recreational water-associated outbreaks.

• More options are now provided on the report form for listing the 

types of problems and deficiencies encountered in drinking water 

systems (e.g., lack of filtration, lack of back-flow prevention, crossconnection, and negative pressure) and in recreational water settings 

(e.g., heavy bather density, and animal or human fecal 

contamination). The system has also expanded the types of 

outbreaks that it includes, including legionellosis and single cases of 

wound infections associated with exposure to recreational water.

• In 2007 and 2008, it is anticipated that public health departments in all 

50 states and in other territories and localities will be able to report their 

WBDO surveillance data either by completing and mailing or faxing the 

paper-based form currently in use, or by entering and transmitting the 

data electronically. Discussions are under way between the DPD and 

Diarrheal Diseases Branch at CDC to integrate the WBDO surveillance 

system with the Electronic Foodborne Outbreak Reporting System 

(EFORS). EFORS is an Internet-based system designed for state health 

departments to report foodborne disease outbreaks.7

 Integration with 

the EFORS system will facilitate transitioning to electronic reporting of 

WBDOS, a transition that has been requested by various state health 

departments.

7

EFORS is available in all 50 states and in Washington, D.C., U.S. Virgin Islands, American 

Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, Northern Mariana Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, 

Johnston Atoll, Marshall Islands, U.S. Minor Outlying Islands, Navassa Island, Wake Island, 

Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Kingman Reef, and Palmyra Atoll.
Appendix XIV

Surveillance and Reporting of Waterborne 

Disease Outbreaks, Centers for Disease 

Control and Prevention, HHS

Page 130 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

• Both CDC and EPA have responded to trends observed in the WBDO 

surveillance data.

• In response to the increase in reported recreational water outbreaks, 

CDC has developed a Healthy Swimming Program, including a Web 

site (http://www.cdc.gov/healthyswimming) with information for the 

general public, the aquatics sector, and health professionals. It also 

includes information for public health professionals on how to report 

such outbreaks and how to investigate them. Over 800,000 visits to 

this site have been recorded since its inception in 2002. Similar 

efforts have been made in the development of a CDC drinking water 

Web site in response to the observed relative increase in the number 

of drinking water outbreaks associated with private wells.

• EPA has responded to trends in the WBDO surveillance data by 

enacting drinking water regulations and providing recreational water 

guidelines. Outbreak trends have also stimulated EPA and CDCsponsored research, such as the National Epidemiologic and 

Environmental Assessment of Recreational Water (NEEAR) study. As 

a result of data from the MMWR Surveillance Summaries, the 

Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists passed a 2004 

position paper requesting that CDC convene a national workshop to 

develop a national prevention plan for infectious diseases spread 

through chlorinated swimming venues. The national workshop was 

held in February 2005. CDC’s National Center for Environmental 

Health has also allocated a portion of a full-time employee to work 

on recreational water issues resulting from CDC’s response to the 

WBDO surveillance data.
Page 131 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Appendix XV

Biological Resources Discipline, U.S. 

Geological Survey, Department of the Interior ApendxiXV

Background The Biological Resources Discipline (BRD) provides the scientific 

understanding and technologies needed to support sound management and 

conservation of the nation’s biological resources. In October 1996, BRD 

was established within the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), bringing an 

important living resources dimension to the USGS earth sciences 

orientation, thus making it possible for the bureau to bring physical plus 

biological science to natural resource management problems. BRD 

supports federal stewardship responsibilities and mandates to estimate the 

availability and abundance of fish and wildlife resources, determine the 

distribution and abundance of migratory birds, investigate and report on 

North American birds, conduct inventories of all public lands and their 

resources, implement programs for endangered and threatened wildlife 

and plants, conserve marine mammals, and implement the Convention on 

Great Lakes Fisheries.1

 BRD works cooperatively with federal and state 

agencies to share information necessary to develop a comprehensive 

picture of the nation’s biological resources.

The majority of BRD programs and resources remain directed toward the 

needs and responsibilities of Department of the Interior resource 

management bureaus, such as studies supporting development of annual 

waterfowl regulations, research leading to better land protection strategies 

for national parks, and investigations seeking optimal water control 

practices for enhancement of fisheries.

However, an equally important BRD objective has been the establishment 

and ongoing development of a National Biological Information 

Infrastructure (NBII), a network of distributed databases and information 

sources on biological resources. NBII information is being used by federal 

and state agencies, researchers, universities, museums, planning and 

environmental consultants, private companies, landowners, and the public.

1

These legislative mandates include the Organic Act of 1879, 7 U.S.C. § 2204; Migratory Bird 

Treaty Act (enacted 1918), 16 U.S.C. § 704; Migratory Bird Conservation Act (enacted 1929), 

16 U.S.C. § 715d; Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act of 1934, 16 U.S.C. § 661; Fish and 

Wildlife Act of 1956, 16 U.S.C. § 742a et seq.; Great Lakes Fishery Act of 1956, 16 U.S.C. § 

939a; Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, 16 U.S.C. §§ 1361 - 1421h; Endangered Species 

Act of 1973, 16 U.S.C. §§ 1531-1544; Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, 43 

U.S.C. § 1701 et seq.; Fish and Wildlife Improvement Act of 1978, 16 U.S.C. § 666g; 

Nonindigenous Aquatic Nuisance Prevention and Control Act of 1990, 16 U.S.C. § 4721; 

Water Resources Development Act of 1990, 33 U.S.C. § 2317(a)(3)(A).
Appendix XV

Biological Resources Discipline, U.S. 

Geological Survey, Department of the 

Interior

Page 132 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Summary USGS officials indicated that actual funding for biological programs for 

fiscal year 2005 and anticipated funding for fiscal year 2006 will not have an 

adverse effect on the ability of these programs to generate data of similar 

quality and comprehensiveness when compared with data from previous 

years. The officials indicated, in particular, that there should be no effect 

on the ability of these programs to generate data used to support indicators 

in the 2002 Heinz Center report, The State of the Nation’s Ecosystems.

Figure 13: Biological Resources Discipline Program Budget for Fiscal Years 2000-

2005 and Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006

Note: Funding levels were adjusted for inflation using a chained GDP price index based on information 

from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Congressional Budget 

Office.

In addition, agency officials indicated that planned BRD program activities 

and priorities set out in its strategic plans will not have a significant effect 

on the ability to produce data in coming years when compared with data in 

previous years. The officials added, however, that BRD does not anticipate 

Proposed fiscal year 2006 funding

Fiscal year

Funding level (in millions)

Source: USGS.

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

Inflation adjusted (FY ’00 dollars)

Appropriated funds

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 
Appendix XV

Biological Resources Discipline, U.S. 

Geological Survey, Department of the 

Interior

Page 133 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

any significant new resources becoming available to significantly expand 

its ecological monitoring efforts. Barring significant budget reductions, 

they said, BRD recognizes the importance of continuing the research and 

monitoring efforts cited above, primarily in response to the legislative 

mandates these projects were first developed to address. As utilized in the 

2002 Heinz Center report, The State of the Nation’s Ecosystems, agency 

officials stated that data is expected to be available in a satisfactory form 

for the next Heinz Center report on the nation’s ecosystems, expected in 

2007.

Agency Perspectives 

on Potential Impacts of 

Funding Levels and 

Program Changes

USGS officials provided the following information on funding levels and 

program priorities relative to BRD’s ability to continue providing 

environmental and ecological data comparable with past years:

• Biological Research is a budget activity (budget line item) within the 

USGS appropriation “Surveys, Investigations, and Research.” BRD 

officials indicated that budget allocations for the BRD programs for 

fiscal year 2005 are about 1.6 percent below enacted appropriations for 

fiscal year 2004 (as depicted in Figure 13) but nearly 2.5 percent above 

the President’s fiscal year 2005 budget request for BRD. The officials 

added that this slight reduction in enacted funding from fiscal year 2004 

to fiscal year 2005 has had no effect on the ability of BRD programs to 

collect data supporting ecological indicators.

• The BRD program components that generated data utilized by the Heinz 

Center in its 2002 report and the 6-year funding history of those 

programs are as follows:2

2

USGS/BRD officials indicated that the President’s proposed fiscal year 2006 budget 

maintains the current fiscal year funding for all three data programs on which the Heinz 

Center relied for data to support the indicators in its 2002 report.
Appendix XV

Biological Resources Discipline, U.S. 

Geological Survey, Department of the 

Interior

Page 134 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Table 15: BRD Funding for Program Components for Fiscal Years 2000-2005

Source: USGS.

a

USGS provided $167,000, FWS provided $55,000, and EPA provided $40,000.

b

USGS provided $170,000, and FWS provided $80,000.

c

USGS provided $175,000, and FWS provided $80,000.

d

USGS provided $222,000, and FWS provided $55,000.

e

USGS provided $422,000, and FWS provided $55,000.

f

USGS provided $538,000, and FWS provided $55,000.

• BRD officials indicated that congressional appropriations are not the 

sole source of funding to support their program activities. BRD has 

various models for obtaining funding from other sources, including 

other federal agencies, states, nongovernmental organizations, and 

industry associations. The extent of supplemental funding from outside 

sources varies among BRD programs. As an example, the Cooperative 

Research Program is funded through appropriations used to staff, 

support, and manage USGS/BRD participation in this partnership with 

states. Similarly, the research and technical assistance activities of 

individual BRD units are supported by reimbursable funds from state, 

federal, and local governments.

• With regard to possible future budget reductions, agency officials 

indicated that their response would depend upon the degree of severity 

of the cuts and any guidance that might come from the Department of 

the Interior, the Office of Management and Budget, and Congress. They 

said that any substantial reductions in funding would slow the collection 

and input of data and databases would no longer be as up-to-date, 

resulting in incomplete data for indicators. They noted that under past 

budget reductions, USGS generally received specific guidance regarding 

the types of projects and activities to cut. They anticipate that USGS 

would receive and follow such guidance in the future and, where 

possible, would modify data program activities so as to have the least 

adverse impact on its customers’ highest-priority needs.

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

North American Breeding Bird Survey $250,000 $250,000 $250,000 $250,000 $250,000 $250,000

Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database $262,000a $250,000b $255,000c $277,000d $477,000e $593,000f

Animal Deaths and Deformities 1,072 1,147 1,228 1,313 1,403 1,539
Page 135 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Appendix XVI

Earth Resources Observation Systems Data 

Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Department of 

the Interior ApendxXiVI

Background The mission of the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Earth Resources 

Observation Systems (EROS) Data Center encompasses three areas: (1) 

science (promoting knowledge of land information to better understand 

our planet), (2) data access (ensuring that scientists, researchers, 

businesses, policymakers, and the public have ready access to this 

information), and (3) data archiving (safeguarding and expanding the 

national archive of remotely sensed land data).

EROS traces its origins to the 1960s and the development and use of 

remote-sensing technology to survey the Earth’s surface for land 

management, natural hazard analysis, and resource analysis applications. 

An Earth-observing program was formally established in 1969 through a 

joint initiative of the USGS and the National Aeronautics and Space 

Administration (NASA). In July 1972, the first Earth Resources Technology 

Satellite, later named Landsat-1, was launched. From its inception, EROS 

was designed to be interdisciplinary in nature, which is reflected in its mix 

of federal and contractor workforce skills, including experts, among 

others, in geology, hydrology, forestry, satellite systems engineering, 

satellite data acquisition, and information science.1

EROS comprises satellite operations, long-term data preservation and 

access, and remote-sensing research and data utilization. EROS holds the 

world’s largest collection of civilian remotely sensed data covering the 

Earth’s land surface, archiving millions of satellite images and aerial 

photographs. The archive holdings, coupled with engineering and scientific 

expertise at EROS, provide a unique capability for developing and 

promoting science applications of remotely sensed data to identify, 

monitor, and understand changes on the landscape and across the interface 

between nature and human activity.

Summary USGS officials indicated that the fiscal year 2006 budget includes funding 

for the continuation of Landsat 7 operations and begins to fund the 

planning and preparation for receiving, archiving, and providing access to 

the next-generation satellite data in 2010. This funding will result in the 

continuation of data collection and analysis such that in future years the 

1

The Land Remote Sensing Policy Act of 1992, 15 U.S.C. §§ 5601-5672, and Presidential 

Decision Directive National Science and Technology Council-3 (signed May 10, 1994, and 

revised Oct. 16, 2000) give EROS a mandate for collecting data.
Appendix XVI

Earth Resources Observation Systems Data 

Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Department 

of the Interior

Page 136 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

data used in the Heinz Center report will be of similar or superior quality 

and comprehensiveness when compared with past years. However, for 

purposes of the center’s 2007 report, the data will not likely be as current as 

initially planned because of a May 2003 malfunction of the Landsat 7 

satellite.

Figure 14: Earth Resources Observation Systems Program Budget for Fiscal Years 

2000-2005 and Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006

Note: Funding levels were adjusted for inflation using a chained GDP price index based on information 

from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Congressional Budget 

Office.

Agency officials reported that in the next 5 to 10 years, largely due to 

planned satellite deployments, the next-generation satellite data can 

improve the ability to produce data for most of the Heinz Center ecological 

indicators used for the 2002 report, The State of the Nation’s Ecosystems. 

Changes in analytical approaches may expand the utility of data sets such 

as the National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD) used in the Heinz Center 

Proposed fiscal year 2006 funding

Fiscal year

Funding level (in millions)

Source: USGS.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Inflation adjusted (FY ’00 dollars)

Program funding

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 
Appendix XVI

Earth Resources Observation Systems Data 

Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Department 

of the Interior

Page 137 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

report, and may result in higher quality national digital elevation data; also, 

data on vegetation condition expected from planned satellite missions are 

expected to be of higher quality.2

Agency Perspectives 

on Potential Impacts of 

Funding Levels and 

Program Changes

USGS officials provided the following information on funding levels and 

program priorities relative to EROS’s ability to continue providing 

environmental and ecological data comparable with past years:

• Reimbursable funds received from other federal agencies, international 

cooperators, and other USGS disciplines constitute about half of EROS’s 

total funding.3

 The operations and research conducted at EROS have 

relied equally on appropriated and reimbursable funds. The largest 

source of reimbursables historically was the sales income from satellite 

images and other digital remotelysensing products. Other reimbursable 

funding was derived from camera calibration support, service, and 

assistance to other Department of the Interior agencies as well as 

federal and international agencies, and ground station fees charged to 

international cooperators receiving Landsat data. However, as a result 

of Landsat 7 satellite malfunction in May 2003, that degraded the quality 

for portions of the Landsat 7 images transmitted by the satellite, images 

became less marketable, and reimbursable income dropped sharply 

with fewer data sales. The loss of Landsat 7 income had a significant 

affect on the development of NLCD and the phenology dataset. All 

EROS programs were affected by the income loss, including research, 

which funds NLCD and plant growth datasets. The loss of Landsat 7 

income therefore slowed the creation of the NLCD by at least a year. In 

2

USGS established the USGS Land Cover Institute as a help center for users of land cover 

data, such as the NLCD. The institute staff provides on-demand assistance in determining 

the data requirements for user applications. The staff of the forerunner to the Land Cover 

Institute, the Land Cover Applications Center, provided the consultative and data processing 

support services needed for the 2002 Heinz Center report.

3

Other USGS disciplines (water, biology and geology), and other Department of the Interior 

agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and National 

Park Service, are sponsors of and partners in EROS projects and provide reimbursable 

funds. Non-Interior agencies such as the U.S. Agency for International Development, U.S. 

Department of Agriculture, Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Forest Service, National 

Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, Federal Emergency Management Agency, 

Bureau of the Census, and United Nations Environment Program are also major partners 

with EROS.
Appendix XVI

Earth Resources Observation Systems Data 

Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Department 

of the Interior

Page 138 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

fiscal years 2003 and 2004, USGS reprogrammed funds to compensate, 

in part, for this drop in revenue. EROS funding is shown in table 16:

Table 16: EROS Appropriated, Reprogrammed, and Reimbursable Funds for Fiscal Years 2000-2005, and Proposed for Fiscal 

Year 2006

Source: USGS.

a

President’s proposed budget.

b

Appropriated amounts include funding from other USGS programs. The majority of the EROS’s 

appropriated funding comes from the Land Remote Sensing Program (LRS), and from two other 

programs: the Geographic Analysis and Monitoring (GAM), and Cooperative Topographic Mapping 

(CTM). For example, in fiscal year 2004, EROS received about $3,010,000 from GAM, $4,844,000 

from CTM, $18,688,000 from LRS, and about $3,300,000 from other USGS programs.

c

In fiscal year 2003, funds were reprogrammed by reducing training, supplies, equipment and nonlabor contracts, and cancellation of planned deposits to a working capital fund for maintenance of the 

EROS facility. In addition, contract funds were reprogrammed from both the Cooperative Topographic 

Mapping (CTM) Program and from an emergency facility contingency fund used to cover repairs to 

other USGS facilities. In fiscal year 2004, the Mapping, Remote Sensing, & Geographic Investigations 

Activity reprogrammed funds from the CTM Program, resulting in a reduction of funds for mapping 

contracts, National Academy of Sciences studies, and funds for travel, training, recruitment/hiring, and 

equipment purchases. In fiscal year 2005, USGS will use a working capital fund to cover costs.

The requested appropriation of $43.4 million for fiscal year 2006 reflects an 

increase of $6 million to provide base funds to continue Landsat 7 satellite 

operations until the 2009 launch of the Landsat Data Continuity Mission 

(LDCM), and $7.4 million to begin system development activities that 

ensure capabilities are in place to ingest, archive, process, and distribute 

LDCM data from the first National Polar-orbiting Operational 

Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) satellite that year.4

 This 

additional funding request for both the Landsat continuity operations and 

the preparation for NPOESS is the beginning of a 4-year effort; after the 

Dollars in millions

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006a

Appropriatedb $27.9 $29.9 $32.5 $30.7 $29.8 $30.6 $43.4

Reprogrammed/Working Capital Fundc -- -- -- 2.2 3.8 6.0 --

Reimbursable 24.9 29.1 30.3 29.7 31.9 25.7 25.7

Total $52.8 $59.0 $62.8 $62.6 $65.5 $62.3 $69.1

4

The data from NPOESS is expected to be of higher quality and comprehensiveness when 

compared with earlier data as used in the 2002 Heinz Center report, as colocated 

atmospheric and weather instruments will allow for better atmospheric correction of data 

than can currently be achieved.
Appendix XVI

Earth Resources Observation Systems Data 

Center, U.S. Geological Survey, Department 

of the Interior

Page 139 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

expected launch in 2009, operation and maintenance costs are estimated to 

be approximately $23 million a year.

• EROS archiving costs have been kept relatively constant for fiscal years 

2000 through 2005 by taking advantage of technological advances to 

manage the ever-increasing volume of data. However, as more data are 

collected at an unprecedented rate, there is some potential of 

overwhelming the archiving capacity. One of the specific legislative 

mandates of EROS is to archive data generated by Landsat and other 

Earth-observing satellites.5

 This includes the transfer of old data to 

state-of-the-art electronic storage media for long-term preservation and 

access as well as archiving and preserving a considerable amount of 

legacy data (e.g., old aerial photographs) and declassified images from 

military intelligence satellites of an earlier era. The dollar amounts 

dedicated to archiving (in data management/information technology 

funding) and each of the other major components of EROS’s operations 

are shown in table 17:

Table 17: EROS Funding by Operation for Fiscal Years 2000-2005

Source: USGS.

a

Costs of operation and control of the Landsat satellite system, including scheduling acquisition of 

satellite images and controlling the satellite.

b

Costs of data archiving and information technology support of desktop and computer-room computer 

systems, networks, and help desk functions.

c

Costs of applied and research science and training utilizing data from the EROS archive and other 

data center archives for internal projects and for partnership projects with reimbursable customers.

d

The appropriated share of costs of operations and maintenance of the EROS facility, including 

security, custodial, and operations and maintenance contracts, materials and supplies for the 

5

15 U.S.C. § 5652.

Dollars in millions

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

Imagery acquisitiona $8.0 $8.0 $8.0 $8.0 $8.0 $8.0

Data management/information technologyb 11.9 13.6 16.3 13.6 13.0 12.7

Science applicationc 7.0 7.2 6.5 7.1 6.5 6.6

Facilitiesd 1.0 1.1 1.7 2.0 2.2 3.1

Landsat 7 reprogramminge 0.0 0.0 0.0 2.2 3.8 6.0

Total Funding $27.9 $29.9 $32.5 $32.9 $33.5 $36.4
Appendix XVI

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contracted activities, employee safety, government vehicles, grounds maintenance, and various other 

facilities-related activities.

e

Costs of providing Landsat operations functions normally funded by data sales, but funded by 

reprogramming funds due to the loss of data sales revenue.

• Funding levels have not kept pace with mandated cost-of-living 

adjustments affecting all USGS programs, including operations and 

research at EROS. Salaries for 80 or more federal employees and 600 or 

more contactor employees at EROS have risen steadily from year to 

year as a result of cost of living increases. In fiscal year 2002, staff costs 

constituted 83 percent of available funding. By fiscal years 2003 and 

2004, these costs accounted for 85 percent of funding at EROS. For 

fiscal year 2005, staff costs are projected to account for nearly 90 

percent of available funds. Federal employee cost of living pay increases 

are covered by legislated pay increases; the contract employees are 

entitled to receive the same pay increases that federal employees 

receive. However, there is no provision in the USGS budget request for 

covering these increased contract costs. The salary costs and total 

number of staff at EROS are shown in table 18:

Table 18: EROS Salary Costs and Staffing Levels for Fiscal Years 2000-2005

Source: USGS.

• The malfunction of the Landsat 7 satellite in May 2003, which degraded 

the quality for portions of images transmitted by the satellite, is not 

expected to impact the type of data used by the Heinz Center in its 

report.6

 The next NLCD is being developed using Landsat 7 data 

acquired in 2001, prior to the data anomaly. Thus, it is not expected to 

Dollars in millions

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

Total funds (appropriations, reprogramming ,and 

reimbursables) $52.8 $59.0 $62.8 $62.6 $65.5 $62.3

Salary costs (federal employees and contractors) $42.7 $47.7 $52.2 $53.4 $55.6 $56.2

Salary costs as a portion of EROS budget 81% 81% 83% 85% 85% 90%

Total staff 648 668 656 647 655 665

6

The Heinz Center used data from the 1992 NLCD derived from Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper 

data for most of its purposes, and also, from Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer 

(AVHRR) data spanning a number of NOAA polar orbiters for plant condition analysis.
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have a negative effect on the portrayal of ecological conditions or usein 

the projected 2007 Heinz Center report.7

 While the malfunction of 

Landsat 7 does not seriously affect the currently planned NLCD effort, it 

does jeopardize planned future updates. The USGS and agencies that 

sponsor and fund the development of the NLCD would like to update the 

2001 database, once completed, using 2006-2007 remotely sensed data. 

The Landsat 7 malfunction, uncertain Landsat 5 status and projected 

LDCM launch in 2009 threatens the update.

• EROS supports current satellite missions and missions under 

development that are expected to provide increasingly detailed 

assessments of land characteristics and conditions, collecting data with 

improved specifications and analytical capabilities.

• The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) recently 

released a Landsat data continuity strategy that calls for transitioning 

the Landsat program from a series of independent missions to an 

operational program by incorporating Landsat-type sensors on future 

satellites within the National Polar-orbiting Operational 

Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) series. The program is to 

be operated jointly by the Department of Defense and NOAA. The 

first NPOESS spacecraft is scheduled for launch in December 2009.

• Next-generation satellite data are expected to improve the ability to 

produce the Heinz Center ecological indicators ecosystem extent and 

fragmentation and landscape pattern. In addition, satellite-derived 

data (e.g., data on land cover) can serve as inputs to at least five 

additional indicators: (1) those using data on nutrients such as 

carbon and oxygen, (2) chemical contaminants, (3) condition of plant 

and animal communities, (4) soil biological conditions, and (5) 

production of food, fiber, and water. These Heinz Center ecological 

indicators may benefit the most from such improved satellite data.

The specific advantages provided will depend on the specifications of 

the mission, satellite, instrument, and ground data processing. Key 

design factors in the next-generation satellites essential to improved 

environmental indicator data sets are as follows:

7

Up to nine federal agencies have contributed funds to purchase the Landsat data needed to 

develop the NLCD. Development of the NLCD is funded through partnerships with USGS, 

EPA, Interior, and USDA. While the specific funding varies from year to year, USGS 

contributes approximately half of the funds needed to provide for the NLCD. The funding 

level for NLCD in fiscal year 2006 is expected to be flat.
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• Availability. The most urgent issue is the long-term availability of 

data. Without access to appropriate remotely sensed data, it will not 

be possible to develop current indicator datasets.

• Continuity (comparable spatial and spectral coverage, temporal 

frequency). It is important that future generations of data be 

comparable to data from the past. While identical specifications are 

not necessary, data collected in the future must be compatible with 

the characteristics of legacy data.

• Calibration for comparison over time. Improved sensor and data 

calibration will greatly enhance comparisons of measurements over 

time by reducing the uncertainty and error resulting from comparing 

data. This is particularly crucial for quantifying trends in ecological 

conditions.

• Improved geometry. The precision of image geometry will ensure 

that data measurements represent specific places on the Earth. This 

is also important when comparing data over time. The greater the 

precision to the Earth’s surface, the more reliable are trends based on 

comparisons of data from different times.

• Improved spectral characteristics. This will permit improved 

characterization of key vegetation attributes, including chemical and 

physiological status.

• Surface imperviousness data and tree canopy density data are being 

developed for the newest generation NLCD. Surface imperviousness 

provides a representation of the amount of paved material covering 

each 30-meter Landsat 7 pixel. Canopy density is an estimate of the 

percentage of woody vegetation in each 30-meter pixel. These data 

layers may be quite useful in addressing indicators related to human 

activity and disturbance as well as vegetation condition and 

biogeochemistry status.

• USGS is engaged in a national assessment of the rates, causes and 

consequences of 1973-2000 land use and land cover change for each of 

the 84 conterminous U.S. ecoregions and selected Alaska ecoregions. In 

this study, for each ecoregion, detailed analysis of the types, rates, and 

causes of change are being estimated, trends in landscape fragmentation 

and patterns are being derived, and estimates of changes in ecoregional 

carbon dynamics are being modeled.
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• Future data on vegetation condition should improve in quality as the 

USGS transitions from the use of the Advanced Very High Radiation 

Radiometer (AVHRR) to the Moderate Resolution Imaging 

Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and then NPOESS.8

 While data quality will 

improve due to advanced calibration, as well as spectral and geometric 

properties, research is needed to ensure the continuity of measurements 

from those datasets.

8

AVHRR is a radiation-detection imager used for remotely determining cloud cover and the 

surface temperature to generate a variety of products related to measurements of the 

atmosphere, ocean, and land. Typical applications include day and night cloud mapping, 

snow and ice detection, land-water boundaries, sea surface temperature, and the vegetative 

index. MODIS is an instrument aboard select satellites that collect data to improve our 

understanding of global dynamics and processes occurring on the land, in the oceans, and in 

the lower atmosphere, in particular supporting models to predict global change accurately 

enough to assist policymakers in making sound decisions concerning the protection of our 

environment.
Page 144 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Appendix XVII

National Stream Water Quality Accounting 

Network, U.S. Geological Survey, Department 

of the Interior ApendxiXVI

Background The National Stream Water Quality Accounting Network (NASQAN) 

consists of 35 stations at which systematic and continuing measurements 

are made to determine the quality of the nation’s largest rivers 

(Mississippi—including the Missouri and Ohio river basins—Columbia, 

Colorado, Rio Grande, and Yukon) and their major tributaries.1

 The 

network measures a range of characteristics selected to aid in the 

utilization and protection of these major rivers at regional and national 

levels. The network’s objectives are to (1) account for the quantity and 

quality of water moving within and from the United States, (2) detect 

changes in water quality, (3) depict area variability, and (4) lay the 

groundwork for future assessments of changes in stream and river quality.2

NASQAN produces data used by the Environmental Protection Agency and 

the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration for reports related to 

important off-continent resources, such as the Gulf of Mexico. NASQAN 

data and information have been prominent in identifying the amount of 

nitrogen, phosphorus, and other nutrients leaving the million-square-mile 

Mississippi River Basin and contributing to Gulf of Mexico hypoxia 

conditions. NASQAN provides information needed to improve and 

eventually validate management actions needed to control the size of the 

hypoxic zone in the gulf. The link between Mississippi River Basin 

influences on Gulf of Mexico hypoxia is one reason the Mississippi 

sampling by NASQAN remains the highest priority for the network.

From 1973 (when sampling began) until 1980 (at the peak of NASQAN’s 

operations), water at the stations was sampled monthly, but as resources 

declined, sampling frequency decreased to bimonthly and then quarterly. 

Reduction in sampling frequency and the number of sites sampled began in 

1981, when there were about 515 sites with about 165 sites measured 

1

NASQAN was originally established in 1973 to address the following problems associated 

with the nation’s streams and waterways: (1) a relatively small amount of hydrologic 

records, (2) frequent changes in sampling location and frequency of observations, (3) 

chemical measurements that did not include hydrologic measurements (stream flow was 

not included), and (4) a lack of data to determine temporal variability of specific 

constituents of the streams and rivers, so trends could be identified.

2

NASQAN operates primarily through federal appropriations to achieve its objectives; 

however, it also participates in collaborative efforts with some states that use NASQAN data 

for their information needs under the Clean Water Act, section 305(b). In some cases, states 

collect additional samples at NASQAN sites to complete their data needs, thus building on 

the base-level information NASQAN provides. According to USGS officials, given NASQAN’s 

modest size, its ability to meet site-specific state needs is limited.
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bimonthly (six times a year), with the remaining sites measured monthly. 

By 1986, there were about 496 sites—one site measured monthly, 285 sites 

measured bimonthly, and the remaining 210 sites were sampled quarterly. 

From 1987 to 1992, about 410 sites operated, with about 240 bimonthly and 

the remaining 170 quarterly. Finally, in 1994, about 285 sites were operating, 

with about 160 bimonthly and the remaining 125 quarterly.3

During 1995, the NASQAN network was redesigned consistent with 

existing budgets to focus on the transport of constituents within and from 

the four largest river basins in the conterminous United States: the 

Mississippi, Rio Grande, Colorado, and Columbia.4

 USGS chose to make 

NASQAN’s objective the transport of constituents in large rivers of the 

United States because, at the national level, no other organization was able 

to provide such data and information. Further, large rivers transport 

constituents like nutrients that have a major influence, seasonally and even 

year-to-year, on the condition of receiving waters like the gulf. In 1996, the 

new design for NASQAN included 47 stations in the four large river basins, 

with monthly sampling, plus three high-flow samples per year. The monthly 

samples, taken on a fixed time interval—like the first week of each 

month—cover many different water conditions, and allow scientist to 

determine how conditions vary by seasons (e.g., spring versus fall) and 

over years. The three high-flow samples help to ensure that the most 

important flows for transport estimates are sampled during times when the

3

By multiplying the sites and sampling frequency, at the peak of operation in 1980, NASQAN 

collected about 6,200 samples annually. By 1994, NASQAN collected only about 1,450 

samples.

4

The transport of constituents here refers to the movement of nutrients, metals, pesticides 

or other components of a water sample down a river, expressed as a mass measurement 

such as pounds per year. Since that time, NASQAN has been measuring nutrients like 

nitrogen, phosphorus, carbon, and silica; metals like lead, zinc, copper, and cadmium; and 

pesticides like atrazine, diazinon, and simonizes.
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river flows are largest, or highest.5 NASQAN now samples constituents 

such as nutrients, metals (both dissolved and metals on sediment 

particles), major ions, pesticides, and field parameters such as flow, 

temperature, dissolved oxygen, specific conductivity, pH, and alkalinity. 

The two major differences between samples collected prior to 1996 and 

more recently are: (1) more frequent sampling now (12 to 15 times per year 

versus about 4 times per year previously, allowing coverage of many more 

flow conditions), and (2) the addition of pesticides, and metals associated 

with sediment particles, neither of which were previously collected prior to 

1996 (metals associated with particles may be the major transport 

mechanism for some metals). Since transport is the primary objective, 

adding the metals associated with particles was an important change.

5

High flows do not always occur during the preselected times for monthly samples to be 

collected. NASQAN sampling crews have the flexibility to both sample the regularly 

scheduled monthly sample, plus at other times of the month if the flows are high and should 

be sampled to improve our transport estimates. Transport is the result of multiplying 

concentration (e.g., pounds per gallon) with flow (gallons per day) to provide a result of 

pounds per day. So, since transport values (pounds per day or pounds per year) result from 

a multiplication of flow and concentration, high flows are important in influencing the 

results of pounds per year. For some streams, 90 percent of more of the annual transport 

may occur over the span of just a few days (3 to 5 days, for example) in a given year. That is 

why the high flow sampling can be important, and must be included in the sample scheme 

when transport is one of the sampling objectives.
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Figure 15: National Stream Water Quality Accounting Network Budget for Fiscal 

Years 2000-2005 and Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006

Note: Funding levels were adjusted for inflation using a chained GDP price index based on information 

from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Congressional Budget 

Office.

Summary Information provided by USGS officials indicated that NASQAN is not 

reducing the quality of data collected, and remains committed to 

maintaining the highest level of its water-quality data nationwide. However, 

due to funding reductions over the previous three years and the impact of 

inflation, there has been a reduction in the geographic coverage of data 

collected under the program.6

 In 1996, when NASQAN began operations 

Proposed fiscal year 2006 funding

Fiscal year

Funding level (in millions)

Source: USGS.

0.0

0.5

1.0

1.5

2.0

2.5

3.0

3.5

Inflation adjusted (FY ’00 dollars)

Appropriated funds

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 

6

USGS officials indicated that the fiscal year 2006 budget request includes an inflation 

adjustment equal to about $30,000, or about 1.3 percent of its budget, but otherwise, the 

funding request is equal to the enacted fiscal year 2005 amount. Officials believe that this is 

less than what is needed to keep pace with inflation for one year. As a result of this and 

program reductions in real dollars, NASQAN operations will continue to be reduced.
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with the new design for the network, NASQAN was operating with an 

annual budget of $3 million. Even with the 2006 request of about $2,277,000, 

10 years after redesign, NASQAN is operating with about 76 percent of the 

1996 operating budget. According to USGS officials, inflation impacts 

simply exaggerate that reduction over 10 years. Furthermore, the 2002 

Heinz Center report relied considerably on NASQAN data collected when 

more than 400 stations were being used for sampling; the current NASQAN 

network now gathers data from only 35 stations, which is about 8 percent 

of the previous total. NASQAN cannot duplicate the data used for the 2002 

Heinz Center report, as there are many areas of the country that are no 

longer covered by NASQAN. Most of the coastal and Great Lakes stations 

no longer operate, the stations in the arid West are generally no longer part 

of NASQAN, stations in the Mid-Atlantic and the southeastern United 

States are no longer operative, and the Mississippi River Basin, while still in 

operation with 18 stations, is just a sparse presence compared with the 

approximate 175 stations previously operating in the Mississippi River 

Basin. NASQAN can still provide valuable insight on loading for a large 

river like the Mississippi, whose watershed includes about 40 percent of 

the continental landmass of the nation.

Agency Perspectives 

on Potential Impacts of 

Funding Levels and 

Program Changes

USGS officials provided the following information on funding levels and 

program priorities relative to NASQAN’s ability to continue providing 

environmental and ecological data comparable with past years:

• A major factor influencing future NASQAN operations is the effect of 

economic inflation. Because about 88 percent of NASQAN funding goes 

to sample collection and chemical analysis in river basins, future 

inflation (or any other network resource reductions) would likely result 

in the sampling of fewer sites.

• NASQAN funding declined from about $4 million in fiscal year 1990 to 

about $3 million in 1995. In fiscal year 2005, funding is about $2.2 

million.7

• Reductions in available operating funds have reduced the number of 

geographic locations included in NASQAN. Of the five major river 

7

USGS does not reduce the quality of data collected even as the funding levels have 

declined. Regardless of the number of samples and geographic extent of data collected, data 

quality would remain high and comparable with past data.
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basins, sampling in the Yukon will end in fiscal year 2005. As 

necessary, to accommodate any future funding reductions, fewer 

sites would be sampled and the frequency of the samples performed 

would be reduced for the Columbia, Colorado, and Rio Grande, in 

that order. Continued funding reductions could ultimately limit 

operations in the Mississippi River Basin. 

• Reductions in available funds often reduce the number of geographic 

sites at which samples are collected. Overall, in fiscal year 2000, 

NASQAN operated 41 stations, and in fiscal year 2005, it plans to 

operate 35 stations. An estimated 29 stations will be operated in 

fiscal year 2006.

• NASQAN is a perennial activity, and as such, the following major 

components of the program do not change substantially from year to 

year:

• River basins—where data is collected. These are the major 

geographic components of NASQAN, and consume most of the 

resources for field collection and processing of samples, with 

subsequent analysis at the USGS National Water Quality Laboratory 

in Denver, Colorado. River basin activities consume 88 percent of the 

program’s resources.

• Network coordination and database operations—support the field 

logistical operations and quality assurance of the data generated by 

NASQAN. Database operations are focused on ensuring the data are 

of high quality and are freely available over the Internet through the 

USGS National Water Information System. Together, these activities 

consume the remaining 12 percent of the program’s resources.

• Analysis and reporting—review and analysis of data and creation of 

meaningful reports and information products. Historically, these 

activities have been important to NASQAN; however, no funds are 

currently available for analysis and reporting.

• In fiscal year 2006, following conclusion of field work in the Yukon in 

fiscal year 2005, funds totaling about 10 percent to 15 percent of the 

total NASQAN funds will become available and be devoted to analysis 

and reporting, with an equal decrease in resources devoted to river 

basin data collection activity. The decrease in river basin data collection 

is mostly from the planned conclusion of sampling in the Yukon. Since 
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fiscal year 2000, NASQAN has operated five fixed stations in the Yukon 

and has also done additional sampling along the length of the Yukon 

each summer from 2000 through 2005. However, after fiscal year 2005, 

the stations will cease operating and the summer sampling will end. 

NASQAN will redirect some of its resources from the Yukon to sampling 

at the remaining network stations and to analyzing and reporting on 

NASQAN data. The analysis and reporting function of NASQAN has 

largely been absent since 2000 because of the Yukon sampling, NASQAN 

funding decreases, and inflation impacts.

• Over the last 4 years, the National Water Quality Laboratory has reduced 

the number of personnel needed to produce a consistent level of data. 

This reduction has helped offset annual salary increases due to cost-ofliving increases provided to federal employees. 

• Monitoring at five stations in the Yukon River basin began in fiscal 

year 2001. To provide the resources for the Yukon monitoring, 

monitoring in the Colorado basin was reduced from eight stations to 

two and in the Columbia basin from six stations to one. The objective 

of the Yukon River basin monitoring is to establish baseline waterquality conditions for comparison with future conditions. These 

comparisons will be important for understanding the release of 

carbon, nitrogen, and other nutrients from the expected partial 

melting of permafrost in the Yukon basin. A broad range of 

chemicals—including nutrients, mercury, natural and manmade 

organic chemicals, and trace elements—are being measured at five 

stations from the Canadian border to the mouth of the river.

• Resources in fiscal year 2006 are projected to be insufficient to restore 

the monitoring stations that were closed in the Columbia and Colorado 

river basins in prior years in order to provide funding for monitoring in 

the Yukon River basin. In addition, sampling is expected to stop in the 

Columbia, Colorado, and much of the Rio Grande river basins in order 

to provide funding for data analysis and interpretation of data on the 

Mississippi River basin, and to finalize reports on the results of the 

monitoring activity in the Yukon River basin.8

 Table 19 shows the river 

8

For the Rio Grande, negotiations are not complete, but USGS officials anticipate that of the 

eight stations, six will remain in operation in 2006. Officials also anticipate that 2006 will be 

the last year of operation for those six stations. These NASQAN operational plans may have 

to change if the NASQAN 2006 budget turns out to be less than currently projected.
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basins and number of stations operated in fiscal years 2000 and 2005, 

along with an estimate for fiscal year 2006:

Table 19: NASQAN Stations in Operation, Fiscal Years 2000, 2005, and 2006

Source: USGS.

a

Estimated.

Mississippi River

basin

Rio Grande

River basin

Columbia River

basin

Colorado River

basin

Yukon River

basin

Total NASQAN

sites

2000 18 9 6 8 0 41

2005 19 8 1 2 5 35

2006a 18 8 1 2 0 29
Page 152 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Appendix XVIII

National Water Quality Assessment Program, 

U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the 

Interior ApendxiXVI

Background The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) proposed the National Water Quality 

Assessment (NAWQA) program in 1985 to (1) provide a nationally 

consistent description of current water-quality conditions for a large part of 

the nation’s water resources; (2) define long-term trends (or lack of trends) 

in water quality; and (3) identify, describe, and explain, to the extent 

possible, the major factors that affect observed water-quality conditions 

and trends.1

 NAWQA was established in large part because of the 

complexity of water-quality issues, including the challenges of managing 

diffuse sources of pollution; the introduction into the environment of 

hundreds of synthetic organic compounds, such as pesticides and volatile 

organic compounds in solvents and gasoline; and the need to better 

understand the interrelatedness of groundwater and surface-water 

systems.

The NAWQA program is a primary source for long-term, nationwide 

information on the quality of streams, groundwater, and aquatic 

ecosystems. This information supports national, regional, and state, and 

local decision making and policy formation for water-quality management. 

At river basins and aquifers across the nation, USGS scientists collect and 

analyze information on water chemistry, hydrology, land use, stream 

habitat, and aquatic life.

NAWQA studies focus on streams and groundwater. Lakes, reservoirs, 

estuaries, and coastal areas are monitored in only a few selected areas for 

specialized studies. Because many of the assessed streams and rivers 

contribute to lakes, reservoirs, and estuaries, an ongoing goal is to 

collaborate with other USGS programs, such as the national stream quality 

accounting network; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric 

Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and other federal 

agencies; and states to assess major receiving waters, such as the Great 

Lakes, Chesapeake Bay, Long Island Sound, San Francisco Bay, and the 

Gulf of Mexico. In these collaborations, NAWQA provides quantitative 

information on (1) amounts, and long-term trends in concentrations, of 

nutrients, pesticides, and sediment that enter receiving waters from major 

tributaries; (2) regional source areas of contaminants; and (3) effects of 

1

In 1987, the National Academy of Science’s Water Science and Technology Board reviewed 

the NAWQA pilot program and in 1989 concluded that the implementation of the program 

was in the best interest of the nation, and that USGS was well qualified to establish and 

implement the program. In 1991, the administration requested and Congress appropriated 

$18 million to begin the full NAWQA program.
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population growth and land use on the amounts and concentrations of 

contaminants. This information is critical for developing strategies aimed 

at reducing contaminants in individual river basins and their effects on 

receiving waters. 

Summary USGS officials indicated that the fiscal year 2006 budget request includes a 

cost-of-living adjustment equal to about 2.7 percent of the NAWQA 

program; however, years without full cost-of-living adjustments and the 

actual funding reduction in fiscal year 2005 have required substantial 

changes to the planned NAWQA data collection and analysis activities. As 

utilized in the 2002 Heinz Center report, The State of the Nation’s 

Ecosystems, agency officials stated that only some of the NAWQA data are 

expected to be available in a similar form for the expected 2007 follow-on 

indicator report.

Figure 16: National Water Quality Assessment Budget for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 

and Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006

Proposed fiscal year 2006 funding

Fiscal year

Funding level (in millions)

Source: USGS.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Inflation adjusted (FY ’00 dollars)

Appropriated funds

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 
Appendix XVIII

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Note: Funding levels were adjusted for inflation using a chained GDP price index based on information 

from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Congressional Budget 

Office.

NAWQA is not reducing the quality of data collected regionally or 

nationally, and remains committed to maintaining the highest level of its 

water-quality data nationwide. However, the collection and measurement 

of contaminants in fish tissues and in streambed sediment is expensive, 

and, given resource constraints, USGS determined that other information 

on measurements and trends had higher priority. While data on 

contaminants in fish tissues and streambed sediment will no longer be 

available, NAWQA officials expect all other data used in the Heinz Center 

report to be available, although the data will be based on fewer streammonitoring sites and groundwater information networks.

Agency Perspectives 

on Potential Impacts of 

Funding Levels and 

Program Changes

USGS officials provided the following information on funding levels and 

program priorities relative to the NAWQA program’s ability to continue 

providing environmental and ecological data comparable with past years:

• Data collection activities have been altered by a reduction in program 

funds (by about $1,640,000) in fiscal year 2005.2

 About 60 percent of the 

NAWQA program budget is used for data collection and field activities. 

In the fiscal year 2005 budget, about $500,000 has been cut from data 

collection activities.

• The time period for data collection is being lengthened for some 

activities. For example, in some cases, data will be collected over 4 

rather than 3 years.

• Inflation and about $861,000 in funding cuts in fiscal year 2005 have 

forced the geographic scope of sampling to be reduced. For example, 

in fiscal year 2005, NAWQA officials reduced from 145 to 84 the 

number of long-term surface-water monitoring sites, forcing 

managers to redesign their programs and approaches to data 

2

NAWQA requested a decrease of $779,000 for fiscal year 2005, reflecting an intended 

restructuring of USGS, moving some of the expenses from programs such as NAWQA to the 

Geographic Information Office (GIO). GIO, in turn, will provide directly for the information 

technology needs of programs, including NAWQA. The proposed budget restructuring was 

anticipated and will not adversely impact NAWQA activities; however, the additional 

reduction from the rescission accompanying the fiscal year 2005 omnibus appropriations 

bill impacts the amount of data collection NAWQA can accommodate.
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collection.3 If additional budget reductions were required of the 

program, officials said they would probably further reduce the 

number of “study units” participating in the program—rather than 

eliminate specific goals and objectives or further dilute the 

assessment efforts in any one particular geographic area.4

• Because of program changes and inflation, only selected sites and 

measurements made during the first decade of the NAWQA program will 

be repeated during the program’s second decade. Cycle 1 of the NAWQA 

program occurred approximately from 1992 through 2001. This cycle 

focused on describing the status and condition of waters (or “current 

water quality conditions”) in some of the nation’s largest and most 

important rivers and aquifer systems.5

 The NAWQA program has since 

begun a second 10-year cycle (Cycle 2) that is focused on identifying 

changes in water-quality trends and understanding factors affecting 

water quality, rather than determining current water-quality conditions. 

The change in focus will result in the elimination of some types of data 

used in the Heinz Center report. Specifically, data suited to describing 

water conditions will be decreased or not sampled again, and data for 

establishing trends or providing insights into causative factors will be 

increased. For example, data on the contaminants in fish tissue or in 

streambed sediment will not be reproduced as a result of the shift in 

emphasis and the impact of inflation. Some of these data (from 1993 to 

1998) were used in the Heinz Center report of 2002, and will no longer 

be available. Many of the organic compounds measured in these media

3

Fewer surface-water sites at both the regional and national level decreases the 

comprehensive coverage that was provided by the larger number of sites. As a result, there 

are fewer sites in individual study units to represent the range of important environmental 

settings, such as watersheds, and range and grasslands, and agricultural and urban areas.

4

Study units represent major river basins and aquifers across the nation, and were selected 

to represent important hydrologic and ecological resources; critical sources of 

contaminants, including agricultural, urban, and natural sources; and a high percentage of 

the population served by municipal water supply and irrigated agriculture. A study unit is 

the primary building block of the program, and about 60 percent of the program funding is 

allocated to study unit activity.

5

All of the NAWQA data (from about 1993 to about 1998) used to support the 2002 Heinz 

Center report resulted from Cycle 1 (the data collected between 1998 and 2001 were not 

available at the time the Heinz Center report was published).
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Interior

Page 156 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

have been banned or controlled.6 It is known that concentrations of 

these contaminants, while still present, are generally declining. 

• The NAWQA program is vulnerable to losses in purchasing power at all 

levels of the program, chiefly due to a lack of full cost-of-living 

adjustments in its appropriations. At its inception, NAWQA was 

intended to provide data on 60 study units across the nation. Over the 

years, USGS has opted to keep the quality of the data generated by 

individual study units at as high a level as possible. Because of the 

impacts of inflation, however, to maintain the quality of the data from 

individual study units, USGS has found it necessary to reduce the 

number of study units included in NAWQA. 

From the outset of the NAWQA program, available resources limited the 

initial assessments to 51 study units, rather than the 60 study units initially 

planned.

• After a decade of operation, with the program’s transition in a second 

cycle to study trends in water quality and understand the factors that 

cause changes in water quality, the number of study units has been 

further reduced to 42.7

 Data collection activities are the most 

expensive, and thus the most vulnerable, of NAWQA’s activities. 

However, all aspects of the program, including analysis, synthesis, 

research, and management must also be reduced since, according to 

program officials, this is the only way to keep data collection efforts 

as robust as possible.

• NAWQA’s funding level for fiscal year 2005 forced cuts in the number 

of studies within each study unit that address the factors causing 

water-quality changes. Study units will perform an average of one 

study, rather than two studies, during the year, substantially reducing 

6

Such contaminations include, for example, dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and 

polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB).

7

Commenting on this reduction in its most recent review of the program in 2001, the 

National Research Council (NRC) stated that “[the program] cannot continue to downsize 

and still be considered a national water quality assessment. Though it could certainly be 

redesigned, this would likely undo the basis for assessment of trends and would waste a 

decade or more of effort.” As a result of NRC’s comments, NAWQA program managers have 

chosen to maintain the 42 study unit design and reduce specific activities within the design. 

In addition, the Cycle 2 design that was reviewed and endorsed by NRC in 2001 was based 

on the erroneous assumption that full cost-of-living adjustments would occur.
Appendix XVIII

National Water Quality Assessment Program, 

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Interior

Page 157 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

the ability to identify such causes and doubling the time required to 

cover a wide range of environmental settings around the nation. 

Prioritization of study units in the past has been based on a 

combination of factors, including: (1) ensuring representation of the 

diverse hydrologic landscapes and ecological regions of the nation, 

(2) examining water use for public and domestic supply, and (3) 

ensuring representation of the major contaminant sources (urban, 

agricultural, and natural).

• Given current financial constraints, NAWQA has begun to reduce some 

program activities, such as its work involving volatile organic compound 

(VOC) synthesis, and applying the related funds elsewhere. NAWQA is in 

the process of completing its national synthesis of VOC information 

with respect to aquifers and groundwater used for drinking water. Once 

completed, the related financial resources can be applied to other 

synthesis topics, such as those involving nutrients and pesticides.8

• The implementation of continuous monitors and the application of new 

data collection schemes over the past 30 years have provided additional 

data and insights not obtainable through conventional sampling 

schemes by providing the capability to enhance knowledge of 

conditions and address new questions. Following are examples of 

NAWQA efforts to improve approaches to measuring contaminants and 

water constituents:

• NAWQA’s research budget includes efforts to develop new methods 

to measure water contaminants at low concentrations and efforts to 

measure new contaminants that are not currently studied by 

NAWQA.

• Newly developed continuous monitors, such as those that measure 

nutrients, are deployed to obtain additional information, even though 

they are costly and often require increased maintenance to keep 

them in calibration. At present, NAWQA sends sampling crews to 

stream or well locations to physically obtain a water sample, process 

8

NAWQA work on the subject of VOCs has had a major influence on how the nation thinks 

about gasoline additives, specifically methyl-tert-butyl ether (MTBE), which has been 

shown to move long distances under the ground and contaminate drinking-water wells. 

Partly as a result of NAWQA data, California, Maine, and New Hampshire have either 

restricted or banned the use of MTBE in gasoline products to protect their drinking-water 

wells.
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National Water Quality Assessment Program, 

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Page 158 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

the sample, and send it to NAWQA analytical laboratories in Denver, 

Colorado. New monitoring instruments pump samples from streams, 

process them internally, and produce measurements that are stored 

digitally. While improving efficiency, these instruments cost over 

$100,000, require considerable maintenance, and require verification 

that the samples they pump and analyze represent the conditions of 

the stream. Typically, the additional work and costs do not end up 

saving the USGS funds and are often difficult to justify, although the 

instruments provide more-frequent sampling, which can be 

important for understanding stream conditions and what influences 

those conditions. By using and evaluating new instruments, USGS 

officials have learned that the instruments provide new types or 

amounts of data, increasing their value. These devices also allow 

measurement in locations without the need for people to be present.

• NAWQA has made efforts to improve or deploy new instruments for 

measuring surrogates, which can substitute for the measurement one 

wants to make, but can be made more frequently or cheaply than the 

measurement of interest. For example, a turbidity monitor could be 

used in lieu of taking direct phosphorus measurements. In order to 

obtain phosphorus measurements, a person is required to visit a 

stream site, remove a water sample, process the sample, and send it 

to a laboratory for analysis, or, as described above, utilize a 

continuous monitoring station at a significantly greater cost. 

Alternatively, a turbidity monitor costs much less (usually under 

$10,000), does not require as much maintenance as a nutrient 

analyzer, and does not generate the chemical wastes that must be 

addressed with a nutrient analyzer. Thus, if a turbidity instrument can 

serve as a substitute for a nutrient analyzer for phosphorus, one can 

operate the turbidity monitor for less cost than the nutrient monitor. 

The problem is that turbidity (a physical measurement) does not 

always work as a replacement for the direct measurement of 

phosphorus, and thus may not be an adequate surrogate for 

phosphorus in many situations. In such situations, the phosphorus 

measurement has to be made by a site visit, collecting a sample, and 

sending it to the laboratory.
Page 159 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Appendix XIX

National Wetlands Inventory, U.S. Fish and 

Wildlife Service, Department of the Interior ApendxiXIX

Background The National Wetlands Inventory (NWI) provides federal, state, tribal, and 

local governments, business, and the public with wetlands data that are 

used for a wide range of applications, such as helping conserve and restore 

wetland resources and providing information to assess the efficacy of 

resource policies. The three strategic goals of the NWI include: (1) updating 

wetlands maps in priority resource areas, (2) intensifying wetlands status 

and trends reporting at national and regional scales, and (3) identifying 

threats to aquatic habitats at risk.1

 The Emergency Wetlands Resources Act 

of 1986, as amended, directs the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to 

map the nation’s wetlands and deepwater habitats, and produce scientific 

information on their characteristics, extent and status at 10-year intervals 

(published as the Status and Trends report).2

 The Status and Trends

report represents the most comprehensive, technically advanced federal 

effort to track wetlands on a national scale.

Summary USFWS officials indicated that funding has been consistent with requests, 

and actual NWI funding for fiscal year 2005 and funding proposed in the 

President’s budget request for fiscal year 2006 will enable the NWI to 

produce results and accomplishments as presented in its budget document 

requests. In particular, the officials told us that they do not foresee any 

impacts to the data used in the 2002 Heinz Center report, The State of the 

Nation’s Ecosystems, as the NWI Status and Trends report and the data 

therein is mandated by law.3

1

In a general sense, USFWS strives to map wetlands and deepwater habitats and to produce 

information on their location, type, and size. Maps are prepared from the analysis of highaltitude imagery, where wetlands are identified based on vegetation, visible hydrology, and 

geography. A margin of error is inherent in the use of remotely sensed imagery; thus, 

detailed on-the-ground inspection of any particular site may result in revision of the wetland 

boundaries or classification established through image analysis.

2

16 U.S.C. § 3931(a)(4).

3

According to USFWS officials, the Status and Trends report is a strategically important and 

long-standing national monitoring program, and is a crucial element of the President’s 

Wetlands Initiative. Without it, they say, the success or failure of wetland program 

investments cannot be conclusively determined.
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Wildlife Service, Department of the Interior

Page 160 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Figure 17: National Wetlands Inventory Budget for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 and 

Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006

Note: Funding levels were adjusted for inflation using a chained GDP price index based on information 

from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Congressional Budget 

Office.

Agency officials told us that there are no planned program changes for the 

NWI that would adversely affect its ability to generate data that can be 

compared with data from prior years. Furthermore, they told us that the 

President requested more frequent wetland reports in the future. Because 

of this, NWI data is expected to be available in an improved form for the 

expected 2007 update of the Heinz Center’s The State of the Nation’s 

Ecosystems report.

Proposed fiscal year 2006 funding

Fiscal year

Funding level (in millions)

Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

0

1

2

3

4

5

Inflation adjusted (FY ’00 dollars)

Appropriated funds

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 
Appendix XIX

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Wildlife Service, Department of the Interior

Page 161 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Agency Perspectives 

on Potential Impacts of 

Funding Levels and 

Program Changes

USFWS officials provided the following information on funding levels and 

program priorities relative to the NWI’s ability to continue providing 

environmental and ecological data comparable with past years:

The NWI has been well-supported through the federal budget process over 

the past 5 fiscal years, although reimbursable funding amounts (funding 

provided by other federal agencies) have varied and their availability in 

future years remains uncertain.4

 Funding for the NWI—both appropriated 

and reimbursed—for fiscal years 2000 through 2005, as well as proposed 

funding for fiscal year 2006, are portrayed in table 20:

Table 20: NWI Funding Levels for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 and Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006

TBD = To be determined

Source: Department of the Interior.

a

As of February 2005.

b

Estimate based on President’s proposed budget.

• USFWS is currently conducting the analysis to complete an updated 

NWI Status and Trends report by December 31, 2005, 5 years ahead of 

schedule. The President requested this updated report on Earth Day in 

2004, and also has requested that USFWS conduct more-frequent 

updates in the future.5

 The Status and Trends report is required by law 

each decade, although many users would like the report to be done on 5-

4

“Appropriated” dollar amounts are defined as the amount provided by Congress for the 

National Wetlands Inventory program, while “reimbursed” dollar amounts are monies from 

other federal or state agencies or entities that were used for mapping activities. For 

example, if the Bureau of Land Management had an interest in mapping riparian wetlands in 

the Southwest, it would directly contribute funding to USFWS that, in combination with 

USFWS funds, would be used to perform the mapping activity.

Dollars in thousands

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006b

Appropriated $4,528 $4,516 $4,607 $4,540 $4,468 $4,636 $4,777

Reimbursables (reimbursables as a percentage of 

total funding)

847

(18.7%)

731

(16.2%)

278

(6.0%)

228

(5.0%)

461

(10.3%)

595a

(12.8%)

TBD

Total $5,375 $5,247 $4,885 $4,768 $4,929 $5,231 TBD

5

The data from the previous Status and Trends report was used by the Heinz Center in its 

2002 report, The State of the Nation’s Ecosystems.
Appendix XIX

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Wildlife Service, Department of the Interior

Page 162 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

year cycles. USFWS is considering doing additional regional status and 

trends reports as needed or requested on a shorter time scale.

• Currently, updating the Status and Trends report involves funding 

contributions from a consortium of federal agencies (including the 

Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, and Defense, as well as the 

Environmental Protection Agency), although the extent to which 

such funding will be available in future years is uncertain. Funding 

Status and Trends in this manner does not assure stable funding for 

future monitoring and reporting cycles and may ultimately affect 

NWI data collection.

• The Status and Trends report costs approximately $2.7 million to 

produce and it would be unlikely that the report could be done 

without a consortium approach.6

• No changes in NWI mapping activities are planned in fiscal years 2005 

and 2006, although maps are updated at little more than 1 percent 

annually at current funding levels.7

 About 17 million to 19 million acres 

of wetlands have been or are expected to be updated annually between 

fiscal years 2004 and 2006, with total digital wetlands coverage for 46 

percent of the nation.8

 However, despite the conversion of the mapping 

process to a digital system and the development of new tools, in the 

present budget environment, less than 3 percent of all wetlands maps

6

One portion of the costs of this report is the selective procurement of imagery from USGS 

(e.g., the Earth Resources Observation Systems Data Center) and other USGS (MidContinent Mapping Center) and USDA (Aerial Photography Field Office) units in support of 

digital wetland mapping and wetland status and trend analyses.

7

The number of maps produced in a given year is a performance measurement for the NWI.

8

Certain wetland habitats are excluded from the NWI mapping program because of the 

limitations of aerial imagery as the primary data source used to detect wetlands. These 

habitats include seagrasses or submerged aquatic vegetation that are found in the intertidal 

and subtidal zones of estuaries and nearshore coastal waters. Some deepwater reef 

communities have also been excluded from the inventory. These habitats, because of their 

depth, go undetected by aerial imagery. By policy, USFWS also excludes certain types of 

“farmed wetlands” as may be defined by the Food Security Act.
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Page 163 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

are 10 years old or newer.9 Maps will continue to be less accurate each 

year as natural and man-made landscape changes occur, and the 

backlog of priority map updating projects for areas experiencing rapid 

change will continue to grow. However, data quality and 

comprehensiveness can be expected to continue to improve as USFWS 

enters into partnerships to update maps of high-priority resource areas, 

conducts analyses of habitats at risk, converts existing paper maps to 

digital format, and digitally maps areas not yet mapped.

• Currently the NWI has 28 full-time employees for the 38 approved 

program positions. Eight occupied positions provide coordination of 

wetlands issues and strategic digital mapping in the seven regions of the 

service. There are 13 employees for technical program support at the 

NWI Center, in St. Petersburg, Florida.10 Seven occupied positions in 

headquarters provide program, budget, and policy direction, as well as 

status and trends capabilities. No more than 2 employees have been 

devoted full-time to wetlands status and trends. To accomplish wetlands 

status and trends reporting, the service has drawn on expertise within 

the NWI as well as from cooperators.

9

In an attempt to reposition the National Wetlands Inventory for the future, USFWS 

highlighted the need for the availability and application of contemporary digital information 

in support of resource management and decision-making. USFWS digitized its wetlands data 

in a centralized Wetlands Master Geodatabase. This is a storage mechanism for spatial data 

and allows for much easier storing, editing, analyzing, and archiving of natural resource 

inventory information. The digital wetlands data set is registered and available via the 

Department of the Interior’s Geospatial One-Stop Web portal.

10The National Wetlands Inventory comprises three units: (1) the Washington, D.C., 

headquarters, (2) Regional Wetlands Coordinators, and (3) the NWI Center. The Washington 

Office coordinates national budget preparation, program planning, national-level program 

administrative issues, wetlands policy issues, and national-level interagency coordination. 

Wetlands coordinators in each service region direct and coordinate all regional technical 

activities, and provide wetlands expertise to the Regional Director, service field offices, and 

the public. The National Wetlands Inventory Center, in St. Petersburg, Florida, coordinates 

the procurement of imagery, provides technical assistance and review of digital wetlands 

data, and serves digital data over the Internet.
Page 164 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Appendix XX

National Streamflow Information Program 

and National Water Information System, Water 

Resources Discipline, USGS, Interior ApendxiX

Background The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) is the primary federal agency charged 

with acquisition and quality control of data on water, including data on 

water levels and discharge rates, and the transformation of this data into 

usable information. High quality information about the elevation and 

discharge of our rivers and streams is important for forecasting floods and 

managing droughts; ensuring water supply for agriculture, industry, cities 

and towns; maintaining in-stream flows for game fish and other aquatic 

species as well as for canoeing, white-water rafting and other recreational 

purposes; and enforcing legal agreements between states and nations. 

Users of the information include land and resource managers and planners, 

municipal and state governments, private citizens, academic institutions, 

and federal agencies such as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Bureau 

of Reclamation, and the National Weather Service. USGS placed its first 

streamgage in the arid West in 1889 to determine if there was adequate 

water to open the region for irrigation and agriculture. Since then, societal 

needs have changed, science and technology have advanced, and the USGS 

streamgaging program has evolved accordingly. Examples of this evolution 

include satellite data transmission, use of Doppler technology for discharge 

estimates, and improvements in flood forecast models, all of which have 

combined to make USGS streamflow data much more valuable for flood 

forecasting today than in the past.1

The increase in the amount of streamflow information about the nation’s 

waters has been accompanied by innovations in information technology 

that are changing old paradigms regarding the access, storage, and 

generation of water-related information—including streamflow 

information. In 1975, USGS established the National Water Information 

System (NWIS) as a distributed network of computers, databases, and 

supporting software for the storage and retrieval of water data collected at 

approximately 1.5 million sites around the country. Among other things, 

NWIS serves as a national archive for national records of groundwater 

quality and levels, surface water quality, and streamflow stage and 

discharge. As a long-term database (with over a century of data on U.S. 

water resources) and an information delivery system that makes extensive 

1

Information from the USGS streamgaging program is the primary source of the nation’s 

streamflow statistics and is used for trend reporting. These statistics include mean annual 

flows and flood and drought frequency statistics (including statistics used for design and 

regulatory purposes, such as the 100-year flood and the 7-day, 10-year low flow measures). 

Streamflow data are also used to explore issues such as trends due to urbanization, 

groundwater development, and climate change.
Appendix XX

National Streamflow Information Program 

and National Water Information System, 

Water Resources Discipline, USGS, Interior

Page 165 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

use of the Internet, NWIS provides both real-time and historic streamflow 

information, along with information on groundwater and water quality.

In 1999, in response to congressional concern that there had been a decadelong decline in the number of streamgages—even as the need for 

streamflow data for flood forecasting and long-term water management 

uses and new needs such as for total maximum daily loads (TMDLS) 

continued to grow—USGS performed a study that showed that the ability 

of its network to meet long-standing federal needs had declined due to: (1) 

an absolute loss of streamgages, (2) a disproportionate loss of streamgages 

with a long data record, and (3) the declining ability of USGS to continue 

operating high-priority streamgages when program cooperators and 

partners (i.e., local jurisdictions, states, and other federal agencies) 

discontinued funding. USGS also reported increased demand for 

streamflow information, caused in part by new data delivery capabilities 

(such as the Internet) and by a Clean Water Act program that requires 

states to monitor water quality. New technologies were needed to improve 

the reliability and application of streamflow information and decrease the 

cost and uncertainty of the information. To remedy this situation, USGS 

proposed a plan for a National Streamflow Information Program (NSIP), a 

new approach to the acquisition and delivery of streamflow information. As 

part of NSIP’s design, USGS established five goals intended to satisfy 

minimum national streamflow information needs and conducted an 

analysis to locate streamgage sites that meet these goals.2

 These sites 

constitute NSIP’s “base” or “backbone” streamgage network, and were 

intended to satisfy the “federal interest” in streamflow information and

2

The five national goals (or needs) that NSIP was intended to provide streamflow 

information for: (1) meeting legal and treaty obligations on interstate and international 

waters (to monitor legal requirements for deliveries of water at state and national borders), 

(2) flow forecasting (providing data for validation and improvement of forecasts where the 

National Weather Service and other federal agencies carry out flood or water supply 

forecasts), (3) measuring river basin outflows (for calculating regional water balances over 

the nation), (4) monitoring sentinel watersheds (providing data from basins that are 

minimally affected by human activities for regionalization of streamflow characteristics and 

assessments of trends in streamflow due to factors such as changes in climate, land use, and 

water use), and (5) measuring flow for water-quality needs (for purposes of characterizing 

the quality of surface waters). A total of 5,293 streamgages are listed under the five criteria, 

but some serve more than one criterion, thus the actual number of streamgages identified as 

NSIP base gages is 4,425.
Appendix XX

National Streamflow Information Program 

and National Water Information System, 

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Page 166 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

would be entirely supported by federal funding.3 This federal need 

backbone network would be supplemented by streamgages cooperatively 

funded with partners to better meet state and local needs for streamflow 

information. In addition, the proposed NSIP had four other components: 

(1) intense data collection during floods and droughts, and additional 

analysis of these data; (2) periodic regional and national assessments of 

streamflow characteristics; (3) enhanced information delivery; and (4) data 

collection and analysis methods development and research.

Summary USGS officials indicated that actual funding for the streamgaging network 

and for NWIS in fiscal year 2005 and anticipated funding for fiscal year 2006 

(as shown in fig. 18) are expected to result in the continuation of data 

collection and analysis across key programs but at a slightly reduced level 

as a result of slightly declining budgets since fiscal year 2001. The officials 

indicated, in particular, that data used to support indicators in the 2002 

Heinz Center Report, The State of the Nation’s Ecosystems, are expected to 

be available for the center’s 2007 report at similar levels of quality and 

comprehensiveness. However, because of uncertainties regarding funding 

in fiscal year 2007 and beyond, the long-term ability of the USGS 

streamgaging network to provide data to support ecological indicators at 

comparable or improved levels of quality and quantity is less clear.

3

According the National Research Council, the national economy is inseparably bound to 

the adequacy of water supplies. By mass, consumptive use of water is the single-largest 

material flow in the U.S. economy, by a factor of more than 20. The national interest in 

economic information on commodity flows has long been recognized and supported with 

federal funding. The NSIP, as proposed by USGS, includes a set of minimum national 

streamflow information needs that should be met by the federally funded portion of the 

streamgage network. Federal support of a base streamgaging network is needed to ensure 

the long-term viability of the network for national needs and is justified because many 

national interests are served by providing streamflow information, which has many of the 

properties of a public good.
Appendix XX

National Streamflow Information Program 

and National Water Information System, 

Water Resources Discipline, USGS, Interior

Page 167 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Figure 18: Funding for USGS Streamgaging Activities from Federal and Nonfederal 

Sources for Fiscal Years 2000-2005 and Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006

Note: Funding levels were adjusted for inflation using a chained GDP price index based on information 

from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Congressional Budget 

Office.

USGS officials also indicated that the agency has no changes planned for 

the national streamgaging network or for NWIS that would adversely affect 

their ability to provide data that can be compared with data from prior 

years. In fact, there are planned improvements to both systems that, if 

implemented over a period of years, would significantly improve the 

quantity, quality, and availability of information to support future iterations 

of the Heinz Center’s report. The officials noted, however, that realization 

of these improvements and their potential for enhancing streamflow 

information depend on funding being made available to implement the 

plans that have been developed. Likewise, adoption of technological 

innovations that have the potential to increase the quantity, variety, 

timeliness, accessibility, and utility of streamflow information will depend 

on the future availability of funding.

Proposed fiscal year 2006 funding

Fiscal year

Funding level (in millions)

Source: USGS.

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

Inflation adjusted (FY 2004 $)

Program funding

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 
Appendix XX

National Streamflow Information Program 

and National Water Information System, 

Water Resources Discipline, USGS, Interior

Page 168 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Agency Perspectives 

on Potential Impacts of 

Funding Levels and 

Program Changes

USGS streamgage program officials provided the following information on 

funding levels and program priorities relative to the ability of the national 

streamgaging network and NWIS to continue providing environmental and 

ecological data comparable with past years:

• While NSIP has been extensively reviewed and widely supported by a 

number of expert bodies, including the National Research Council, and 

has been accepted and endorsed essentially as originally developed, its 

implementation has proceeded far more slowly and haltingly than 

anticipated by USGS and its funding has been insufficient for realization 

of a base federal streamflow network and satisfaction of the federal 

interest in streamgage information that was envisioned in NSIP:4

• NSIP’s fiscal year 2005 budget is only about 15 percent of what would 

be required under full implementation, according to USGS’s 5-year 

NSIP plan, developed in 2003. In fact, none of the five NSIP goals 

proposed are currently being met. Only about 17 percent of the 4,425 

streamgages that make up the base or backbone network designed to 

satisfy the federal interest in streamflow information are currently 

fully or partially federally funded; regional assessments of 

streamflow characteristics are currently only about 7 percent of full 

funding; data collection to enhance understanding of floods and 

droughts is about 5 percent of full funding; and, while improved 

information delivery is almost fully funded, the needs and goals as 

proposed in 1999 will take many years to be met.

• Appropriations for NSIP in fiscal year 2000 amounted to $5.8 million, 

as shown in table 22. In fiscal year 2001, NSIP experienced a 

significant increase in funding, with appropriations of $14.1 million. 

Since that time, however, funding for NSIP has been level or slightly 

declining. Because of the effects of inflation and the program’s 

priority of keeping existing streamgages operational, other 

4

USGS is developing a contract to perform a cost-benefit analysis of the streamgaging 

program. The intent of the analysis is to perform a semiquantitative evaluation of the 

program and its benefits in comparison with the program’s costs. Evaluation of benefits can 

help to sharpen USGS’s understanding of the linkage of the basic data to public and private 

decisions and to public benefits, perhaps pointing to changes in the design or operation of 

the program that could enhance the level of benefits the program provides. The analysis will 

not be extensive. It will be limited initially to evaluating the costs and benefits associated 

with only a few of the many uses of streamflow information. It will be performed by an 

organization external to and independent of USGS.
Appendix XX

National Streamflow Information Program 

and National Water Information System, 

Water Resources Discipline, USGS, Interior

Page 169 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

components of the program have taken most of the cuts required to 

maintain funding for streamgages. These other components, 

including development of new technologies, regional statistical 

analysis, flood and drought monitoring, and database enhancements, 

are currently barely functioning at a markedly reduced level and 

cannot absorb additional reductions and still perform the functions 

for which they were designed. As a consequence, any future funding 

reductions will result in discontinuing existing streamgages.

• Because USGS appropriations for NSIP fund such a small proportion 

(less than 20 percent) of the current active NSIP federal interest 

streamgages, the majority of the network is heavily dependent on 

partner funding, and, as a result, the continued operation of 

streamgages largely depends on partner interests, priorities, and 

needs. This situation creates great instability in the network and 

results in many streamgages being vulnerable to cuts in state, local, 

and other partner funding. At present, of the 4,425 streamgages 

planned to make up the backbone streamgaging network to meet 

federal needs for streamflow information, only approximately 63 

percent are active streamgages. Of these, approximately 750 

streamgages (17 percent) receive some funding from NSIP. 

Approximately 400 streamgages (9 percent) receive all of their 

funding for operation and maintenance from NSIP, and the other 350 

(8 percent) receive only partial funding from NSIP.

• To fully implement the 5-year NSIP plan and the five related federal 

goals for NSIP for fiscal years 2006 through 2010 would require: (1) 

total funding of approximately $103 million spread over the 5 years to 

cover one-time costs, and (2) funding of approximately $95 million 

per year for the continued operation of the program. The full $95 

million per year for operations would not be needed from year one 

because the full streamgage network would not be operational until 

year five. The total costs, one-time costs, and recurring operational 

costs to accomplish the 5-year buildup to full implementation of NSIP 

result in the annual funding needs shown in table 21:
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Table 21: Projected Costs for Full Implementation of NSIP for Fiscal Years 2006-2010 and Operating Costs in Subsequent Yearsa

Source: Department of the Interior.

a

The funding needs depicted in this table reflect a particular funding scenario. If contributions to 

additional funding needed were to vary from this scenario from year to year, then the total additional 

funding needed in any particular year would also vary. For example, if in fiscal year 2006 the total 

additional funding of $48 million is received (for a total of $62 million), then in fiscal year 2007 the total 

additional funding needed is not $64 million , but $16 million to make the total cost for the year $78 

million ($62 million + $16 million). The total additional funding needed column for the five year “ramp 

up” or full implementation of NSIP ignores the increases in the previous years and goes back to the 

existing $14 million as the starting point.

b

$95 million plus inflation into the future for continued operation of NSIP.

• At the current rate of federal spending, full implementation of NSIP will 

not be achieved. The rate of federal spending has been flat or slightly 

declining since fiscal year 2001, and, as a result, NSIP is not able to 

progress toward full implementation. In fact, NSIP has recently 

experienced degradation in its ability to achieve its goals. The costs of 

operating the streamgaging network and of carrying out the other NSIP 

goals have increased due to inflation, and because of the flat or 

declining funding, NSIP has had to do less each of the past several years. 

From the perspective of the percentage of the base network 

streamgages that are currently in operation and the NSIP goals that they 

serve, the sentinel watershed goal is the one that is most directly 

affected, with about 60 percent currently in operation by USGS or other 

agencies. Flow forecast sites are the second lowest, with about 70 

percent currently in operation. In terms of absolute numbers, the flow 

forecast goal has the largest shortfall, with about 920 streamgages short 

of the goal of NSIP for the base federal network. The second-largest 

shortfall is about 330 streamgages for the sentinel watershed goal.

• With insufficient federal funding to establish the full NSIP network, the 

ability of the current network to satisfy the federal interest is basically 

dependent on cooperator funding and not federal funding to USGS. The 

Dollars in millions

Fiscal Year One-time costs Recurring costs Total cost Already funded

Total additional

funding needed

2006 $31 $31 $62 $14 $48

2007 31 47 78 14 64

2008 26 63 89 14 75

2009 15 79 94 14 80

2010 0 95 95 14 81

2011b
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result is that the NSIP goals cannot be achieved. For example, one of the 

goals of the federal streamgaging network design is to have a 

streamgage at each of the National Weather Service (NWS) flood 

forecast locations, so that NWS can more accurately predict floods and 

better issue warnings to protect life and property. Because many of the 

streamgages at these forecast locations are funded by cooperators, their 

continued existence is dependent on the cooperators and is outside the 

control of USGS. If the cooperators decide they do not need the 

streamgages or cannot afford to fund them, USGS is not in a position to 

step into the breach to keep the streamgages operating, and the federal 

need is, as a result, not met. Modifications to program activities are 

constantly being made in response to the changing priorities of USGS 

funding partners, since they provide most of the funding to maintain the 

network. Any budget reductions would cause the streamgaging network 

to shrink. Streamgages identified for termination due to reductions in 

federal appropriations would be selected based on the priorities used to 

design and establish the NSIP federal interest streamgaging network. 

Any funding reductions would have a direct proportionate impact on the 

ability of the streamgaging network to support ecological indicators. In 

the same way, loss of streamgages would proportionately reduce 

information available to the Heinz Center to support its ecological 

indicators.

Table 22: Funding for USGS Streamgaging Activities for Fiscal Years 2000 through 2005 and Proposed for Fiscal Year 2006

Source: USGS.

Notes: Total funding figures for fiscal year 2005 and fiscal year 2006 represent estimates, since key 

appropriations decisions regarding CWP appropriations, fiscal year 2006 NSIP appropriations, and 

data on contributions from partners are not yet available.

a

NSIP became a separate line item in the USGS budget in fiscal year 2003, under the subactivity 

“Hydrologic Monitoring, Investigations, and Research” within the budget activity “Water Resources 

Dollars in thousands

Federal appropriations for NSIP 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

Requests Unknown Unknown $9,321 $12,214 $14,356 $14,254 $14,200

Appropriationsa 5,839 14,127 14,310 14,217 14,179 13,814 14,200b

Cooperative Water Program (CWP)c

CWP appropriations $26,590 $23,281 $24,449 $21,639 $22,506 $22,400 $22,500

Contributions from partners

Nonfed coop partners $38,956 $43,526 $46,808 $46,232 $49,605 $52,580 $55,736

Other federal agency partners 25,512 25,687 26,106 25,711 27,826 28,382 28,949

Totald $96,897 $106,621 $111,637 $107,799 $114,116 $117,176 $121,385e
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Investigations.” Prior to that, USGS funds for streamgaging were embedded in a line item that 

contained a wide range of scientific activities.

b

For purposes of estimating fiscal year 2006 funding for streamgaging, we have assumed that 

Congress will enact the entire amount requested by the President.

c

The Federal State Cooperative Water Program (CWP) was established in 1895 to share the costs of 

streamgaging and certain other water-related activities between the federal and state governments. 

This program funds a significant amount of streamgaging based on matching funds from USGS 

partners. The total cost for the USGS streamgaging program in fiscal year 2004 was approximately 

$114.1 million. Of this amount, $14.2 million was from the USGS appropriation for NSIP and $22.4 

million was from the appropriations for CWP. USGS does not submit a budget request specifically for 

streamgaging within CWP; hence, this amount can be determined only with respect to actual 

’expenditures at the close of each fiscal year.

d

For fiscal years 2000 through 2005, appropriated funding for the USGS streamgaging program has 

ranged between 17 percent and 22 percent of the Water Resources Discipline (WRD) budget. During 

the same period, funding for streamgages has averaged about 4 percent of the overall USGS budget.

e

USGS officials indicated that since fiscal year 1990, nonfederal cooperative partners have increased 

their contributions to the streamgaging program by an average of 6 percent per year. Assuming 

continuation of this trend, contributions in fiscal year 2006 could be as high as $55.7 million. Over the 

same period, federal partners have increased their contributions to the program by an average of 2 

percent per year. Assuming, again, that this trend continues, contributions in fiscal year 2006 could be 

as high as $29 million. Together with USGS contributions, total funding for streamgaging activities in 

fiscal year 2006 could be as much as $121.4 million. However, given the multitude of political and 

economic factors that influence availability of funding from partners, USGS believes that to protect the 

nation’s investment in the streamgaging network and ensure continuity of data, it must be conservative 

when estimating partner funding for future years. As a result, agency officials currently estimate total 

fiscal year 2006 funding at no more than $115 million.

• For fiscal year 2005, the following is the distribution of USGS funds 

invested in selected streamgaging activities from funds appropriated 

for NSIP and estimated funding from appropriations for the 

Cooperative Water Program (CWP):

Table 23: USGS Funds for Selected Streamgaging Activities for Fiscal Year 2005

Source: USGS.

Dollars in thousands

Activity Funding

Percentage of funds

invested

Data collection $37,289 83

Data analysis 135 < 1

Database support 849 2

New streamgages 3,000 7

Research and development 959 2

Quality assurance/quality 

control and oversight 2,679 6
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• Database support funds are used to help develop and maintain the 

NWIS database. Data analysis funds are those from NSIP 

appropriations used to develop regional assessment techniques and 

to better understand floods and droughts. Database support funds 

are used to develop and maintain the NWIS database. New 

streamgage funds are those invested in CWP to establish new 

streamgages and to help decommission existing streamgages due to 

changing local needs for streamflow information. Research and 

development funds are used to develop new techniques and tools to 

provide streamflow information more accurately, at a lower cost, and 

to obtain it more safely. Quality assurance/quality control and 

oversight funds are for national quality control and oversight of NSIP 

and related surface water activities.

• Funding for NWIS, the repository for historical and real-time data on 

streamflow as well as a host other data related to surface water and 

groundwater characteristics, remains steady at about $7.1 million per 

year. This level of funding allows NWIS to maintain system viability with 

minimal improvements, but is not sufficient to allow significant 

modernization efforts. In the last few years, NWIS has had to undertake 

a series of costly measures to comply with new information technology 

security requirements. Most of the funds that would have been used to 

improve system functionality have been absorbed by these security 

efforts. In addition, because the NWIS funding has been flat, the costs 

due to inflation and federal pay raises (with no increase in budget to 

cover those pay raises) have slowly diminished the level of maintenance 

and enhancement that can be done for NWIS each year. NWIS is not a 

line item in the USGS budget, and its funding is not shown in table 22. 

NWIS receives funding from the Hydrologic Networks and Analysis 

Program, NSIP, the National Water Quality Assessment Program 

(NAWQA), and individual USGS water offices across the nation. USGS 

does not believe that NWIS should be counted as a cost of streamgaging 

because NWIS includes many other types of real-time and historic 

water-related data in addition to streamflow data. It is not possible to 

separate the NWIS costs related to streamflow data from the costs 

associated with other types of data. Furthermore, the NWIS costs are 

not related to the size of the streamgaging network. 

• NWIS has been successful in making some technological 

improvements in the past few years, but available funding has 

restricted the number of improvements that can be made and has 

increased the time needed to implement the improvements. The 
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advancement in technologies that USGS would like to implement has 

outpaced the funding needed to incorporate them into NWIS. 

Examples of some of the technologies that have been deferred are: 

(1) systems to provide users with ready access to continuous time 

series data (currently they have ready access only to daily averages 

of these continuous time series data), (2) an ability to approve and 

release finalized streamflow data on an incremental basis (e.g., a few 

months at a time) rather than waiting for a complete release at the 

end of the year, (3) full utilization of graphical systems for editing 

hydrographs and rating curves, and (4) systems for storing the full set 

of depth and velocity data collected during the operation of new 

acoustic Doppler current profiler systems.

• At the current average annual funding level of approximately $7.1 

million, improvements to NWIS require multiple funding years or 

cycles to implement. Although some improvements are complex and 

necessitate longer development time, the current schedule for 

implementing improvements could be shortened with additional 

funding. With funding flat and primarily consumed by maintenance of 

NWIS, the level of work that can be done for enhancements is 

minimal. 

Most of the changes in the way that the agency does streamgaging in the 

future will be due to advances in technology. Some changes, however, will 

be driven by demand, such as requests for more unit-value data (e.g., data 

based on hourly instead of daily or weekly averages). In addition, some 

changes will be driven by requirements, such as the National Oceanic and 

Atmospheric Administration’s requirement to convert to high data rate 

transmitters for real-time data transmission. Providing users with better 

information and better access to data will occur because more streamgages 

will be equipped with higher data rate transmitters that will allow data 

transmission more frequently, providing users with quicker access to the 

streamflow information. As funding permits, new technologies will also be 

used to improve streamflow measurement capabilities. New hydroacoustic 

technologies for measuring the velocity or rate of streamflow will allow 

USGS to obtain higher-quality data at lower costs, especially during periods 

of hydrologic extremes (floods and droughts). Although USGS’s goal is to 

provide users with better information and better access to data, it is more 

realistic to expect that there will be only incremental improvements to 

information and data access in the near term.
Page 175 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Appendix XXI

Sea Viewing Wide Field-of-view and Related 

Sensors (MODIS and AVHRR), National 

Aeronautics and Space Administration ApendxiXI

Background It is part of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) 

mission to look at the Earth from satellites in space to better understand 

how the Earth works and changes. Satellites provide quantitative data on 

ocean biological, physical, chemical, and geological properties. Subtle 

changes in the ocean’s color can signify the presence of or changes in 

various types and quantities of marine phytoplankton (microscopic marine 

plants), the knowledge of which has both scientific and practical 

applications. Phytoplankton accounts for the largest amount of marine 

plant production and serves as the direct or indirect food source for most 

marine organisms. In addition to helping monitor the short-term spatial and 

temporal variability in the ocean’s biology, physics, chemistry, and geology, 

satellites also provide the means for NASA to quantify the ocean’s longterm biological response to global environmental change.

Some of NASA’s satellites estimate the amounts of phytoplankton 

chlorophyll-a, which is a proxy for phytoplankton biomass. NASA proved 

the concept of remote detection of phytoplankton by placing into orbit the 

Coastal Zone Color Scanner (in operation from 1978-1986), and continued 

the measurement of phytoplankton chlorophyll-a with the Sea Viewing 

Wide Field-of-view Sensor, known as Sea WiFS (in operation from 1997-

2003); these efforts were followed by two versions of the Moderate 

Resolution Imaging Spectoradiometer (MODIS), which were launched in 

1999 and 2002. Both MODIS sensors remain in operation. 

Under a joint program (Pathfinder) with the National Oceanic and 

Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NASA obtains data on sea surface 

temperature, based on measurements from space using NOAA’s Advanced 

Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR). Sea surface temperature is a 

fundamental oceanographic indicator of climate change, and is used to 

support various ecosystem indicators. In addition, AVHRR data are used in 

support of a vegetation index, known as the Normalized Difference 

Vegetation Index, created in cooperation with the U.S. Geological Survey, 

the European Space Agency, and the International Geosphere-Biosphere 

Program. Scientists collect images of the Earth’s surface and quantify the 

concentrations of green leaf vegetation around the globe. Such data allow 

the scientists to create detailed maps of the Earth’s green vegetation 

density that identity where terrestrial plants are thriving and where they 

are under stress, for example, due to a lack of water. The vegetation index 

is the core of the data set that was used for the Heinz Center’s ecological 

indicator for plant growth. 
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Summary NASA officials told us it is difficult to provide annual funding information 

for the production of a specific type of measurement based on satellite 

observations because funding is generally allocated within NASA for 

broader missions or for satellites and sensors that collect multiple forms of 

data. NASA officials told us that no planned changes in program priorities 

will affect NASA’s ability to generate data in the coming years that will be 

comparable with data from previous years. Furthermore, they told us they 

believe that NASA data will be available in an improved form for the 

expected 2007 update of The State of the Nation’s Ecosystems report. For 

example, future sea surface temperature data will have the same spatial 

and temporal resolution as earlier data, but will be superior by merging 

microwave and infrared sensors to mitigate problems associated with 

performing satellite observations during times when clouds obstruct the 

view of the Earth from space.

Agency Perspectives 

on Potential Impacts of 

Funding Levels and 

Program Changes

NASA program officials provided the following information on funding 

levels and other factors relative to NASA’s ability to continue providing 

environmental and ecological data comparable with past years: 

Phytoplankton 

Chlorophyll-a

• Estimates for activities associated with collecting chlorophyll data from 

fiscal year 2000 through 2005 from satellite observations are $2.9 

million, $3 million, $3.1 million, $1.4 million, $1 million and $1 million, 

respectively. These funding estimates include costs such as the portion 

of the total costs of multiple satellite missions that can be prorated to 

the specific function of collecting chlorophyll data and the costs of 

analyzing the data. The substantial reduction of from $3.1 million to $1.4 

million from fiscal year 2002 through 2003 reflects the end of the Sea 

WiFS project. Agency officials told us that the actual NASA funding level 

of $1 million for fiscal year 2005 and the proposed level of $1 million for 

fiscal year 2006 should be sufficient to allow NASA to generate 

chlorophyll data from the MODIS sensor, which is expected to provide 

higher-quality data than previous sensors.

• NASA is currently working with the Department of Defense and NOAA 

to manage the Integrated Program Office (IPO), which was created by 

NASA and the Departments of Commerce and Defense in 1994 to 
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develop, acquire, manage, and operate the next generation of polarorbiting operational environmental satellites. As such, IPO will oversee 

the future operational missions and continuity of phytoplankton 

chlorophyll-a data in the National Polar-orbiting Operational 

Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS). The first IPO mission is 

planned to be launched in October 2006.

Sea Surface Temperature • NASA’s expects that sea surface temperature data using AVHRR 

Pathfinder will be better documented and more comprehensive in future 

years. Such data are a few years away from being fully developed, 

although prototypes of the data will be available in the summer of 2005. 

NASA officials stated that there will be no gaps in sea surface 

temperature (SST) data or its availability for use by the Heinz Center 

and other users.

• Responsibility for sea surface temperature data has never been placed 

with one entity. Instead, a wide range of project managers and scientists 

have overseen data collection, research, calibration, and validation 

activities because NASA had never placed into orbit a sensor that was 

dedicated to determining sea surface temperature. NASA will continue 

this approach through the Multi-sensor Improved Sea Surface 

Temperature (MISST) Project and the Global Ocean Data Assimilation 

Experiment High Resolution Sea Surface Temperature (GHRSST) Pilot 

Project. MISST is to be funded by NASA, NOAA, and the Office of Naval 

Research through the National Oceanographic Partnership Program, 

with approximately $600,000 per year for 5 years (fiscal years 2004 

through 2008). A goal of these projects is to combine, in an optimal and 

documented way, data from different sensors so as to provide a global 

sea surface temperature independent of the constraints of cloud cover 

and the limited coverage provided by any single sensor.

• While the AVHRR Pathfinder sea surface temperature data set has 

been useful for multiple users, it has shortcomings that will need to 

be addressed through future research. The primary challenges to be 

overcome by further research include the optimal merger of in-situ 

and remotely sensed sea surface temperature sensors, merging 

infrared and microwave measurements, and providing a 

comprehensive error estimate for data sets.

• To address current challenges in obtaining quality sea surface 

temperature measurements, the Global Data Assimilation 
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Experiment Sea Surface Temperature Pilot Project (GHRSST-PP) 

was formed. GHRSST-PP is intended to provide a significant 

improvement over current data sets, which have recognized 

deficiencies in a number of areas—especially in consistent global 

coverage and the characterization of sea surface temperature data 

accuracy and uncertainties (e.g., cloud contamination and diurnal 

warming effects). GHRSST-PP does not replace AVHRR Pathfinder 

SST but provides an emerging framework and “product line” that will 

be better in many respects. The lessons learned in the development 

of Pathfinder are being used in GHRSST.

• The input data streams to GHRSST-PP will come from several different 

sources, including both microwave and infrared sensors on polar 

orbiting and geostationary platforms. GHRSST-PP supports a process 

whereby satellite data streams from a number of sources will be 

reformatted into a standardized format, complete with error statistics 

and ancillary data, which will significantly enhance their usability for 

assimilation into climate and ocean/atmosphere models.

• GHRSST-PP involves the integration of new technologies that will 

improve current data transmission, validation, and processing. These 

technologies potentially will be applicable across a wide range of 

satellite-derived data sets. 

• GHRSST-PP provides an opportunity to deliver data under standardized 

formats and error characterization to an international user community. 

Activities sponsored by the U.S. include data distribution and 

management through a Global Data Assembly Center. International 

partners include Australia and several European countries (additional 

international partners are expected as the project matures).1

In sum, GHRSST-PP has several important features that will serve to test 

future strategies involving both international data management and the 

creation of satellite-derived measurements suitable for both near-real-time 

research and climate studies:

1

The European Medspiration project will provide sea surface temperature data products to 

specific operational European users in near real time. The project will consist of a data 

processing system, an off-line data archive, and a data product dissemination service. The 

Australian Bluelink Project centers on ocean prediction and analysis, and forecasting of 

day-to-day variations in ocean currents, ocean eddies, and temperatures.
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• rigorous calculation of error statistics for each estimate of sea surface 

temperature data;

• near-real-time distribution of data, in collaboration with international 

partners (the Web interface also allows global data to be chosen for a 

specific area of interest defined by the user);

• standardized formats for all data products that include ancillary data 

sets for complete error characterization of sea surface temperature 

data; and

• models to calculate sea surface temperatures at predefined depths, 

enabling users to know the exact depth of the sea surface temperature.2

Vegetation index NASA plans to continue research involving its Normalized Difference 

Vegetation Index. In particular, a 5-year research and development data 

project that began in fiscal year 2004 is planned through fiscal year 2008, at 

approximately $800,000 to $900,000 per year. The objective of this project, 

which relies on AVHRR, is to create and make available a consistent record 

of the index, dating from 1981.

2

NASA believes that the temperature at the surface of the ocean and at one meter below the 

surface may vary significantly, up to 1 degree Celsius, as the surface of the ocean more 

directly responds to winds and heat from the sun. To understand changes in climate, for 

example, such differences must be understood and modeled correctly. This is also critical 

because, although satellite infrared sensors measure the skin temperature (the very top of 

the ocean surface), most in-situ measurements are taken at depths of several meters. A clear 

understanding of the depth of the temperature measurement is critical to properly using sea 

surface temperature data.
Page 180 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Appendix XXII

Comments from the Department of 

Commerce ApendxXi I
Page 181 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Appendix XXIII

Comments from the Department of the 

Interior ApendxiXI
Appendix XXIII

Comments from the Department of the 

Interior

Page 182 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review
Page 183 GAO-05-376 Ecological Data Program Review

Appendix XXIV

GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments ApendxiXIV

GAO Contact John Stephenson, (202) 512-3841

Staff 

Acknowledgments

In addition to the contact named above, Nancy Bowser, Nancy Crothers, 

Denise Fantone, Tim Guinane, Ed Kratzer, William Lanouette, Ralph Lowry, 

Omari Norman, Aaron Shiffrin, and Jay Smale made key contributions to 

this report.

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